


Scars that Words have Carved

by smolassassinchildx (smolassassinchild)



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003), Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-06-14
Updated: 2010-02-04
Packaged: 2017-10-03 05:55:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 41,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smolassassinchild/pseuds/smolassassinchildx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I take it you met Lt. Lehane. Fisk transferred her over here. Sent a little note and everything; something along the lines of 'She's your problem now.'"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_Rumors on_ Pegasus _were right_; Galactica _was a piece of shit_, Faith thought as she strode down the corridor, her eyes lazily scanning her surroundings  Still, it was better than another trip to the brig. Her duffle bounced lightly against her back as she forged an unfamiliar path towards the pilots’ quarters. She’d never stop and ask for directions, though, and kept a swagger in her step to ward off anyone who’d even think of asking her if she was lost.

Rounding a corner, she was nearly run down twice. First by a tall young man wearing nothing but a dopey grin on his face and a pair of briefs. Second by the short young woman chasing after him, damp hair spraying droplets of water as she ran. The woman was brandishing a towel with her arm clutched across her bare chest. “Hotdog! Give me back my bra!” she screamed as she trailed him. Faith stopped in her tracks and turned, watching the pair dash off down the corridor and disappear around another bend. A smirk came to rest on her lips. _Maybe this reassignment could be fun._

She made a few more wrong turns and hit a few dead ends before she finally found her intended destination. The clock said it was 1730, or whatever passed for 1730 out here in the middle of nothing, and the duty locker was devoid of life; everyone was probably in the mess trying to stomach their sad excuse for dinner. It suited Faith just fine.

A quick survey of the room and she found an empty rack and heaved her duffle off her shoulder. The bag landed on the thin mattress with a thud. She shimmied her green jacket off her shoulders and tossed it alongside the bag. She laced her fingers and stretched her arms up into the air, arching her back, rising up onto her toes, and cracking her neck from side to side.

Sighing contently as the tension left her muscles, she reached up and unzipped her bag, digging out her life--duty blues, dress greys, briefs, socks, sports bra, a single set of civvies. Faith opened up the locker and grabbed a couple of unoccupied hangers. She hummed to herself, bobbing her head and silently screaming words to the last song she’d had the chance to rock out to in her favorite club before the attacks—it kept her mind off how mindnumbingly boring unpacking was.

However, she didn’t have a lot of time to dwell on her boredom before the thud of boots on metal announced the arrival of another person. Faith turned her head to see a blonde step through the hatch; her hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail, grey sweatshirt unzipped and half hanging off one shoulder. Her mood resembled something along the lines of a rainy day on Aerilon. "Move,” she said gruffly, gesturing towards the lower rack.

Faith held up her hands in mock defense as she stepped back, watching as the other woman stooped over reaching for something on the shelf above her pillow. “Nice to meet you, too,” she replied.

The light in the room glinted off the single dog tag that hung from around the blonde’s neck. Its solitude was enough to pique her interest. Stepping close, Faith snagged the ID tag, pulling it towards her and dragging the woman along with it.

“K. Thrace 462753,” she read, relinquishing her grasp as Thrace tore back from her with a scowl crossing her features. Faith’s face, on the other hand, burst into a thousand-watt grin as she brought up her arm to block the fist that came swinging at her face. “So, you’re the legendary Starbuck.”

“You’ve got some balls.” She shot a glare towards Faith-- who had taken to leaning against the ladder, gazing intently at the captain—before turning to rifle through her things. “Now, who the frak are you?”

“Lehane,” she said, pushing herself away from the wall. “Faith. Lt.” She held out her right hand as Starbuck stood upright as well, but didn’t move to reciprocate the gesture. In fact, Faith noted as her gaze wandered, it seemed she’d rather be making friends with her booze, the way her right hand was clutched around the small brown bottle. “Oh hey, can I get some of that?”

Without waiting for an answer, she seized the bottle from Kara’s hand, her grip loose with disbelief as Faith raised the bottle to her lips. Tipping her head back, Faith let out a contented moan as she felt the liquor tear down her throat. The feeling didn’t last long as Thrace’s hand shot out, grabbing the bottle back. “That would be mine,” she snapped.

A few drops of the brown liquid dripped down Faith’s chin and fell, leaving damp marks on her tanks, right above where her dog tags hit her chest. She dragged her thumb across her chin just below her lip as she stared at Starbuck, her eyes fixated on the other woman’s lips. Kara’s eyelids hung low, emphasizing the flame of rage that flickered there, a flush of red covering her cheeks. “What’s the matter?” Faith said as her lips curled into a smirk. “Never learn to share?”

“You need to learn to keep your hands off my stuff,” Starbuck barked, stepping towards her, making use of her minimal height advantage. She jabbed her finger into Faith’s chest, her voice dropping to a warning hiss. “And you refer to me as _Sir_, got that?”

Faith’s laugh was an easy one as she pushed past her. “Sir, yes sir.” She spun around to face her as she backed out of the room, left hand buried in her pocket. “Yo, I got the CO to report to and all that shit. Catch you later, K,” she said, treating Thrace to a sloppy salute before turning on her heel and sweeping from the room.

Starbuck was on her heels in seconds. “Lieutenant!” she snapped as she grabbed Faith by the back of her tanks and pulled her around to face her. “You do not report to the Admiral for the first time dressed like _that_.”

“The Admiral,” Faith scoffed. “Right.”

“You get back in there and get in your blues or, gods help me, I will strip you down and dress you myself.”

Faith bounced her eyebrows, but before she could say anything, Thrace barked another order. “Move.”

With a grin, she slipped past Starbuck, stripping off her tanks before she’d even disappeared from sight.

\---

“Have a nice trip, Apollo?”

Kara must have been waiting, because she ambushed him right outside the hangar deck.  Lee surreptitiously rebuttoned his jacket (he’d missed one stubborn placket in his haste to meet Racetrack who’d agreed to fly him back privately from_ Cloud 9_.) He looked at her carefully, trying not to signal alarm. She couldn’t possibly know about… no. Could she? She couldn’t. The edge in her voice had to be about something else. “Fine,” he replied, trying to sound smooth, easy, and knew he utterly failed to do so. It didn’t seem like she had picked up on the fact. Something must have really been bothering her.

As he started down the hallway, she dogged his steps closely. “I take it you weren’t just waiting there to welcome me aboard,” he said, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye. “What’s on your mind, Starbuck?”

Kara glanced up and down the corridor, as if expecting something to jump out at her at any given moment, before snagging his arm and dragging him into the empty ready room. She slammed the hatch shut behind them and heaved a sigh that didn’t seem to alleviate any of her frustration.

“New pilot,” Kara said through gritted teeth. “Accent… think she’s from Scorpia or something; already a royal pain in my ass. Ringing any bells? Or alarms?”

Lee turned towards the white board where the list of pilots was displayed. He tapped the name on the bottom, a new addition in solid lettering—unlike most of the faded names-- read _Slayer_. “I take it you met Lieutenant Lehane.” He turned back towards Kara who had slumped down in one of the seats, sideways, with her legs dangling over into another chair. “Fisk transferred her over here.” A smile crossed his face. “Sent a little note and everything; something along the lines of ‘She’s your problem now.’” He crossed over towards her and swatted her legs off the second seat before settling himself into it. “And Fisk is a pretty easy-going guy, so she must be-”

“-a walking nightmare?” Kara finished. “Yeah, I’m getting that. What I don’t get, though, is, I was CAG on _Pegasus_,” she rolled her eyes up to the ceiling, “for a couple of days, anyway. Why the hell didn’t I know about her?”

“According to Fisk, she was in hack until a few days ago.” He slouched down in his seat, unbuttoning the top few buttons of his jacket and allowing it to hang open. “It seems there are some people on Pegasus who don’t think Fisk has what it takes to be in charge.”

Kara mirrored his posture, her eyes fixed on the new name on the white board. “I’m shocked,” she said flatly.

“Apparently, Lehane and a few of her buddies started stirring up some trouble, and he couldn’t just sit on his ass about it.” He ran his hand through his hair, realizing it was still slick with sweat from his activities earlier that night. “He needed to break up the group, figured they’d be weaker without their ring leader.”

“And he couldn’t just stick her back in the brig?” Kara grumbled, slouching forward, resting her elbows on her knees.

Lee twisted in his seat to look at her as she played with a loose thread at the inner seam of her pants. “Aren’t you being a little harsh, Kara? She hasn’t even been here a day. She’s probably frustrated, doesn’t know anyone. She’s probably not… _all_ bad.”

“Not all bad?” Kara echoed, finally looking at him for the first time in the whole encounter. “Lee, she pissed off _Fisk_. She got sent here as a _punishment_.”

Lee felt like he on the verge of being ready to just throw up his hands and be done with the whole thing. Instead, his voice adopted a teasing tone. “What’d she do exactly to get your briefs in a bunch?”

“She’s a booze thief, for one.” Kara said, her eyes narrowing as Lee raised an eyebrow. “She has no respect, at all. Professional or personal; it’s like she just does whatever the frak she wants to do; how the hell she even got into the fleet is beyond me.”

“I don’t know,” he said. A hint of a smile starting to appear on his lips. “She kind of sounds like someone else I know.”

Kara gave a snorting laugh as she sat back in her seat. “I don’t know if you just complimented her or insulted me.”

“A little bit of both,” he replied leaning closer to her. “And if she really crosses a line, I’ll make her life hell.”

As if on some instinct, she leaned in towards him; a smirk crossed Kara’s lips and lit up her eyes. “I guess there’s an advantage when the CAG’s…” She trailed off mid-sentence, her nose wrinkling as the glimmer faded from her eyes. She sat back in her seat, eyes wandering over him before she pushed herself to her feet. “You know, Lee. I’m pretty sure the rooms on Cloud 9 have showers. You might want to look into that next time.”

He could feel his heart rising into his throat as he watched her turn away. His feet moved on their own, dragging him out of the chair to catch her by the arm before she could tear from the room. “Kara, wait,” he pleaded. “It’s not… it’s… I just…”

Kara turned back to him. “Whatever, Lee.” She wrenched her hand out of his grasp. “About time you got laid.”

He couldn’t move or even find the words to get her to stay. Lee just watched her as she opened the hatch, pausing momentarily to look back at him, her face unreadable. His brain was telling his feet to move, but they weren’t listening, and she slipped out of sight, closing the door behind her.

\---

Kat heaved a sigh as she folded on yet another losing hand. “I think I’m out,” she muttered, glancing towards her ever-dwindling pile of cubits.

“You can’t leave now,” Racetrack said, looking up from her cards. “The game is just getting good.”

Kat turned her gaze to Maggie’s quickly accumulating stack of  bills and coins and rolled her eyes. “That’s because you’re winning.”

“Well, yeah,” she replied as though it wasn’t even a question. “Stay. I don’t want to be stuck playing with these losers.”

“Hey!” Helo and Hotdog groaned simultaneously; Racetrack shrugged, barely acknowledging them.

Kat reached out, grabbing the last of her money and shoving it into her pants pocket. “I’m not just gonna sit here and lose my shirt.”

“Yeah,” said an unfamiliar voice behind her. “Think you’ve done enough of that already.”

Kat craned her neck looking up at the only vaguely familiar woman standing over her, long waves of brown hair hung loose around her shoulder, and she had a dangerous twinkle in her eye as she looked down at her. “I think I saw you earlier.”

“Yeah, and I saw you. A _lot_ of you.” She turned her gaze towards Hotdog. “You too.”

Helo cast a gaze from Hotdog to Kat and back to Hotdog. “What did you two do now?”

“Nothing,” Costanza protested.

Kat could feel heat rising in her cheeks, but she wasn’t quite sure if it was rage towards Brendan, or the proximity of newcomer who’d now pulled up a chair beside her. “I was taking a shower and he stole my clothes.”

Helo gave a soft shake of his head before turning towards the brunette. “Sorry, things aren’t usually so crazy.”

She waved it off. “Nah, it’s five by five. Good to see people know how to have fun aboard _The Bucket_.”

“I’m sorry,” Racetrack said in a voice that let it be known she was anything but. “Who the hell are you?”

She introduced herself as Slayer, and after the motions of introduction were carried out, Helo dealt her into the game and Kat suddenly didn’t feel up to leaving quite yet. There was this way the new girl had of carrying herself-she leaned over, elbows on the table, but she didn’t slouch and she didn’t show her cards. She was… something.

“So there’s Shaw with her pants around her ankles,” Faith sat up straighter, trying to stop her own laughter “And she’s lookin’ like she wishes she could make bullets come outta her arms like a godsdamned centurion. And she trips and knocks me over into a puddle of engine grease, and the guys are just laughin’ their asses off. Then she was tryin’ to crawl over and trip Gage, so I grabbed her around the waist,” Faith wrapped her arms around the air for emphasis, “and she was slippin’ all over the place. And then Fisk walks onto the deck, and just sorta stares at us. I have it on good authority he spent a good couple hours alone in his quarters after that.” She winked towards Hotdog who seemed to have thoroughly enjoyed her tale. “Good times,” she sighed.

“Yeah,” Kat looked up to see Starbuck who seemed to have strode into the rec room mid-story. “Sounds like fun.”  She pulled up a chair directly across from Slayer. She looked like she wanted to sneer but for some reason Kat couldn’t figure it seemed like she was trying to be civil. “Do a lot of that kind of partying on _Pegasus_? Cain actually let you get away with that kind of crap?”

“Cain had a bit of a soft spot for pretty ladies,” Faith said, shuffling the cards and seeming pleased with Kara’s forced politeness. “Thought you knew about that, K. Heard she bumped you up to CAG pretty frakking fast, didn’t she?”

Starbuck sneered. “Yeah, and look how far that got me.” She glanced down at the table as Faith flung a card towards her before resuming her dealing duties.

“So…” Helo said, not looking up from his cards, but his voice had dropped a little bit. “You’re good friends with Gage?”

“Gage is my man,” she grinned, holding up her right hand, middle finger hooked around her pointer. “Me and him and Vireem are tight, yo.” She shook out her hand and dropped some cubits into the middle. “Ante up. Anyways, I heard while I was in the brig, a couple of frakkin’ toaster lovers got Lt. Thorne killed. They ended up in hack too, and my buddies showed up and–” she broke off, noticing the sudden silence at the table and glanced around. “What?”

“I’m one of those ‘frakkin’ toaster lovers’ that your ‘buddies’ tortured.” Helo glanced at Slayer. Kat was pretty sure she could feel the temperature in the room drop about 10 degrees.

Faith bit down on her lower lip and gave a shrug of her shoulders. After what seemed like an interminably long silence, she spoke once again. “Got what you deserve.”

Whatever had spurred Starbuck to hold her tongue before finally shattered as she shot to her feet. “Okay, you know what? Frak you.”

“Kara,” Helo warned. “It’s fine just… let’s forget about it.

“No, okay? _Pegasus_ Psycho here can’t just walk in acting like she’s _better_ than all of us.” Kara stepped out around the table, to meet Faith who’d also risen from her seat.

Lehane stepped forward, standing toe-to-toe with her now. “Better than him anyway. Our job is to blow up the cylons, not get blown _by_ them.”

Kat was pretty sure Kara threw the first punch, but she wouldn’t bet on it. The pair hurled threats, swears, and fists at each other; Slayer seemed to have the upper hand when she threw Starbuck into a table occupied by Duck and Beano. As the table and Kara hit the ground with a clank and a thud, Kat could see some blood starting to pool on the floor. It didn’t seem like it was enough to stop either of them.

Faith tripped forward, landing on top of Kara. The captain cried out as her head hit the floor, but retained enough of her faculties to slam her knee up into the lieutenant’s stomach before throwing her off. Faith flew into a chair, landing with her arm twisted behind her.

Starbuck got to her knees, swaying slightly before she aimed another punch at Slayer. The blow barely grazed the target but the momentum carried the captain down onto the floor once more. Holding her arm, Faith rose to her feet with a smirk, her breathing ragged and heavy. “So… that… that’s it? That’s the great Starbuck?” She let out a laugh as she delivered a kick to Thrace’s side.

Groaning, Kara rolled over onto her side, grabbed Faith firmly by the ankle, and pulled her off balance, sending her careening into the chair once again, this time catching her face against the seat, and leaving a deep gash on her cheek.

“What the hell is going on in here?”

Kat turned to see Captain Adama storming towards the brawling pilots. “Anyone care to explain?” He wasn’t just looking at the pair on the floor, but at all the others who had just stood around letting it happen.

Faith groaned as she sat up. “She started it.”

Lee shot her a glare before kneeling down beside Kara who kept her hand pressed against the back of her head. Kat could see the bit of red staining her fingers. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” she groaned. “Just… kind of dizzy.”

Lee grabbed Kara by the chin, studying her face and it became very clear that she was having trouble focusing. He slipped his arm underneath hers and pulled her to her feet. “Come on, I’m going to take you down to see Cottle.” Starbuck looked like she wanted to protest, but instead she just held on tighter to Lee. He turned his sights towards Faith, who had pushed herself to her feet and was testing the mobility of her arm. “You too. And that’s an order.”

Faith opened her mouth to object, but the cumulative rage that filled the room seemed to be too much even for her. She strode out of the room ahead of the captains.

Kat moved to set the table upright once again, glancing over to where Hotdog and Racetrack stood clustered away from the fight.  “Think that was her idea of fun?”

\---

Kara cracked one eye open lazily when she heard the shift of metal and fabric, the sound of someone pushing back the curtain around her bed in sickbay. She didn’t know who she expected to see, but she definitely didn’t expect to see Faith standing over her, her elbow bound up in a brace and a piece of gauze taped over her cheek. She didn’t show any sign of hesitation as she walked up; in fact she was almost grinning as she lowered herself down at the foot of Kara’s bed. Thrace almost growled as she spoke. “What are you doing here?”

“What’d the doc say?” Lehane asked. The tone in her voice made it seem like she was asking Kara for the latest on who was frakking who. 

Thrace would’ve shook her head in disbelief if it wasn’t so godsdamned painful to do so. “Concussion. Minor. And again,” she said, her eyes narrowing into a glare. “What are you doing here?”

“You hit me first,” Lehane replied with a raise of her eyebrows.  “I’m bein’… y’know… gracious. I mean, I don’t even know you, and all of a sudden you’re slammin’ your fist in my face.”

“Right,” Thrace scoffed. “Because you didn’t steal my stuff and insult my friend, or anything.”

“Come on, you gotta know how it is when you haven’t been in the cockpit for a while.” Faith nudged her leg. “It’s like you start to feel like you’re losin’ it and you’re skin just starts crawlin’ and you just gotta fight or frak somethin’. Tell me that when you haven’t seen action for a couple of days you don’t just start itchin’ for a cylon raiding party to show up so you can just get in that little_ unh_.” She jabbed with her good arm for emphasis with the grunt.

Kara cocked an eyebrow at her but remained silent, not wanting to admit that she could possibly have anything in common with the lunatic sitting at her feet. She settled back against her pillow and turned her eyes up towards the ceiling.

Faith’s enthusiasm never wavered. “So yeah, pickin’ a fight. Not the best idea, but I’m not exactly up on who’s boinkable ‘round here.” She paused and gazed off out the small opening left by the curtain, her mouth curling into a wild smile. “CAG’s quite the muffin, though. Anyone got dibs on him?” 

Kara bit down on her lip. She was in the middle of debating whether or not it would be worth it to get up and slam Faith’s head into the floor, when for the first time she saw the lieutenant’s bravado falter.

“...oh. _Oh!_” The smile was back. “I shoulda known after the way you were hangin’ on him earlier.”

“What? _No._ don’t… I mean… we’re not… I was having a hard time walking.”

“Uh-huh,” Faith edged closer to her. “Come on, K. What’s he like?”

Kara remembered the scent of sex that had lingered on Lee’s clothing earlier that night and grimaced. “I’m not sleeping with Lee.”

“Damn. I don’t know if that’s willpower or stupidity because if I had a guy lookin’ at me the way he was lookin’ at you earlier, I’d be on him in two seconds flat.”

Kara eased herself back down onto the bed, her voice was firm and final. “I am not having this conversation with you.” She closed her eyes. “You’re dismissed.”

Faith made no motion to leave. “Sounds like you need to have it with someone, ‘cause-”

“I said _you’re dismissed_. That means ‘get out.’ RFN!”

She felt the bed jostle slightly as Lehane got to her feet. There were no footsteps, just a long pause until she finally spoke. “Somethin’ in your bottle needs some serious uncorking, _sir_.”  And she was gone.

Kara rolled onto her side. It’d be another hour or so before someone would bother her awake just to make sure she could. As she drifted off to sleep, she couldn’t help but wonder if, for some reason, Fisk had actually sent Lehane to_ Galactica _to punish them.

\--End Chapter--


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Y'know I did see Starbuck all walking around and yelling at me and alive, so I really don't see the big. That's what this is really about isn't it? It's all about Starbuck with you." "And what about you, Lehane?"

Kat needed to learn to time her morning routine better. Either get up earlier or get out faster. Anything to avoid this.

As Kat washed her face, everything seemed fine. Starbuck leaned over a sink across from her, brushing her teeth, and while she was in no great mood, she seemed to be relatively calm. In the time it took for Kat to grab her towel and dry her face, the captain had changed completely. She gripped the rim, every muscle in her body had tensed, and her eyes glowered darkly into the mirror. Kat glanced over to see that Slayer had stepped out of the shower behind her and wondered briefly if she had time to reach minimum safe distance.

Slayer sidled up to the sink next to Starbuck. “Y’look beat, K,” she said, making a show of wringing out her hair.

“So?” Starbuck grumbled as she rinsed out her toothbrush.

The lieutenant shrugged. “Just an observation.” She flicked a sideways glance at something Kat couldn’t see, until Kara removed it from Faith’s reach. It was a tube of toothpaste. “You, uh, hit the bottle pretty hard last night, huh? Pressure too much for you, sir?”

She should’ve been grateful for that hangover because it seemed to be the only thing standing between Faith and another trip to sickbay. Starbuck grabbed the last of her things and shot Slayer a death threat with her eyes before storming from the room. Kat turned to watch the captain leave before turning back to Faith.

“The frak’s her problem?” Slayer nodded towards the door.

“Other than you?” Kat smirked appreciatively. She grabbed her toothpaste and passed it across the way.

Faith accepted it with a tilt of her head. “Hope it’d take more than me to rattle one of _Galactica_’s officers, ’cause if not, I dunno how the hell you lasted this long.”

Kat’s gaze dropped to the sink, watching a tiny rivulet of water sneak down the drain. “You never got ‘rattled’? Never got burned out?” She glanced back up to see Slayer staring quizzically at her, her toothbrush hanging lamely out of the corner of her mouth as she pulled her hair back and resumed brushing. “Never had to do something… anything to deal?”

“Getting burnt out gets you dead.” She said around a mouthful of foam before she spat it out into the sink. “I get in the cockpit knowing I’m gonna win and the toasters are gonna lose, and it’s workin’ for me so far.”

Kat felt the confusion in her own smile. “Aren’t we supposed to assume we’re already dead and all that?”

Slayer gestured towards her ear with an air of mischief. “Huh. You know they might’ve said somethin’ like that, but, uh, I don’t hear so good.”

“Might wanna get that looked at.” Kat laughed. She glanced once over her shoulder before she strolled around to stand next to Slayer, leaning back against the sink as the other lieutenant rinsed her mouth out. “Starbuck’s been losing it for a while now. This is the worst though; no clue why. If you ask me, I think she got so used to being the best it got to her head and now she just can’t handle the competition.” Kat bumped her elbow against Faith’s.

“Competition?” she echoed. There was something… off about her reciprocating smile, but before Kat could place what it was, the look faded and was replaced by the typical grin. “Sounds like the student’s catchin’ up to the Master.”

“Master, my ass.” Kat scoffed. “I just want to take her down a peg… or ten. I swear she thinks she’s the gods’ gift to flying and she’s...” She shook her head, and turned back to Faith. “On _Pegasus_ they kept scorecards on their birds, right? How many on yours?”

Slayer handed the tube of toothpaste back to her, making a face like she was wracking her brain for the answer. “Guess,” she said, her voice husky and low and it made Kat’s toes curl just a little bit.

She turned the tube over in her hand as she watched Slayer grab the last of her belongings. “Thirty.”

“Guess again,” she said, heading for the hatch.

“Higher or lower?”

“Not tellin’.” Definitely higher.

Kat skipped a bit to catch up to her. “Forty?”

“Guess again.”

“Fifty?”

“Fifty-five.”

“Damn,” Kat replied, nearly breathless. As Slayer winked at her, she reached for something else to add. Following at her heels down the corridor, all she could come up with was “Damn!”

\---

_“Damn it!”_

Kara stormed across the deck. Fury, heat rose in her cheeks as she pushed her way through the flurry of usual post-landing activity towards Lehane’s Viper. “Slayer, what the frak was that?”

“What the frak was what?” She asked, smirking. Her voice was breathy, high, almost laughing, and genuinely confused as she stepped out of the cockpit and perched herself at the top of the ladder.

Grabbing onto the railing, Kara pulled herself up onto the ladder, coming face-to-face with Faith’s perpetual grin. On closer inspection, the lieutenant wasn’t smirking. She was smiling, glowing even. Kara’s knuckles turned white as she gripped the railing, fighting the urge to smack her beaming face. “What the _hell_ were you thinking firing at me like that?!”

The glow began to fade and was quickly replaced with furrowed brow, narrowed gaze, and indignant voice. “That thing was coming up on your six and you wouldn’t--”

“It wouldn’t have gotten behind me at all if you weren’t off playing chicken with its buddy!” Kara grit her teeth. “You nearly got me killed!”

Faith leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. “I can think of about ten reasons you nearly got killed out there, and none of ‘em has anythin’ to do with my flying,_ sir_,” she sneered, her voice rising in volume. “How ‘bout we start with-”

“_**Officers!**_” The younger pilot froze as the CAG’s voice cracked sharply through the air. He reached the foot of the ladder and his voice changed, calm but with an undercurrent of deadly focus that only a fool would want to miss. “You want to yell a little louder?” Lee face was stoic, but the challenge in his tone unmistakable. For the first time, Kara noticed that the entire deck had fallen to complete silence. “I don’t think they can hear you in CIC.”

Kara stepped down from the ladder, landing with a grunt. It took a moment for her to pull her gaze away from Faith and she folded her arms over her chest. “She started it.” It sounded lame even to her.

Lee looked as though his jaw was about to drop. “Are you pilots or preschoolers?” He leveled a firm glare first at Kara then at Faith. “I am this-close to sending the two of you down to _daycare_ and letting them deal with you. Slayer, I want to see you in the ready room, ASAP,” he snapped before turning towards Kara. “And I want to see you in ten.”

As Faith slid down the ladder, she brushed briefly against Kara before following Lee as he headed from the hangar deck. Kara watched her trail him out the hatch. She raked her nails against her scalp, shaking her head. Kara delivered a firm kick to the ladder before storming off in the other direction.

\---

Lee pressed his fingers against his temple, closing his eyes against the migraine that had been building over the last week. Ever since Kara and Faith’s visit to Doc Cottle, he’d been having to play referee to their childish spats. But preventing another trip to sickbay was like herding cats. Every day was something else and what had started with irritation towards one another devolved into blatant button-pushing and outright immaturity.

_Hotdog. Tell Starbuck to leave her boots in the corridor, they make the whole frakking room smell._

_I’m sitting right here._

_Hey, did you hear something?_

Lee had laid in his rack that night wondering when the hell they’d ended up back in high school.

When he opened his eyes, Slayer was right up in his face. “I _got_ the kill. What the frak is the problem?”

Lee heaved a frustrated sigh. “The reckless flying alone is grounds to take you off rotation until you get your head on straight. We’ve lost a lot of people lately and we really needed everyone we can get, but time and resources it’s going to take to fix up the damage you caused when you-”

“Y’know I did see Starbuck all walking around and yelling at me and_ alive_, so I really don’t see the big.” Faith planted her hands on her hips, shaking her head. “That’s what this is really about isn’t it? It’s all about Starbuck with you.”

Lee felt the anger prickle at her insubordination finally; it didn’t help that she was right. “And what about you, Lehane? You want to tell me that little stunt today wasn’t just another in a long list of crap you’ve pulled trying to--”

“Right.” Her eyes narrowed into a glare. “Because I would never think about actually doing my job and saving her pretty little ass-”

“You are going to stop interrupting me, _lieutenant_,” he snapped, the words like the crack of a whip. He felt a tension settle in his shoulders that only a few special people had ever actually brought out. Great, add another one to the list. He watched her shift her weight into her heels. Her jaw dropped slightly as she stared back at him. “You are on my ship now. And I don’t care if this is some fallout from Cain’s philosophy or if you were messing with Kara or if you were just having fun out there, it stops. _Now._” He paused, cooling a little as he was met with silence. “And you are grounded until I say otherwise. Dismissed.”

She didn’t answer him, just took a step forward, towards him. There was no malice in it, no veiled threat. Her gaze narrowed as she looked him up and down, but she wasn’t glaring. No. It looked like she was studying him. She turned when Starbuck’s voice cut the silence. “You wanted to see me, sir?" After a quick glance to Kara she gave Lee one last appreciative look before turning away. As Faith left the room, she paused by Kara. Whatever Faith’s low voice had said, he couldn’t make it out, but Kara’s eyebrow arched as she watched Faith disappear down the corridor.

“What was that about?” Kara asked turning back to Lee.

Lee sank down into a chair and ran a hand through his hair as he looked up at her as she leaned against the podium. “I have no idea.”

  
“Getting to you too, huh?” He saw Kara smile for the first time that day. First time in more days than he could remember, he realized with a pang.

Lee laughed softly. “That’s the understatement of the century.” He rolled his eyes towards the ceiling before returning his gaze to her. “But the spats have to stop, Kara. You’re spending more energy fighting each other than the cylons.”

“Well excuse me if I’m a little worked up after getting hit by friendly fire, and I use that phrase in the loosest way.” She tucked a lock of hair that had slipped out of her ponytail behind her ear.

He pushed himself to his feet and stepped towards Kara. “She frakked up today, and I’m not putting her back out there until I’m satisfied she’s not going to be putting my birds… or my pilots in danger.” He finally stopped, less than a foot away. She was studying the fake wood grain of the podium, rubbing a finger over the grooved surface. “Look. I’m not asking you to be friends with her, but just, find some way to deal with her that does not involve one or both of you in a coma.” He paused for a moment, musing on the dull throbbing behind his eyes. “Although gods know that would make things a hell of a lot quieter around here.”

When she looked up at him, her lips were drawn into a tight line. He was close enough to see that her eyes were red, bloodshot, and he had a sinking suspicion that it had nothing to do with the close call she’d had out there or the feud with Faith. He stepped closer, his arm brushing hers, his voice dropping, more caring friend than CAG now.“If I asked you what was wrong, would you tell me?”

“Won’t know unless you try.” Her voice sounded, low, rough. He supposed it had since she’d shown up, but he’d chalked it up to the screaming match less than fifteen minutes before.

His first instinct was to touch her; despite the little voice in the back of his head telling him it was a bad idea, he reached out, placing his hands firmly on her shoulders. “What’s going on, Kara?”

When she sighed, he felt her breath on his lips. She looked up into his eyes, almost like she was looking for an answer before she finally settled on one. “None of your business, Lee.” She didn’t pull back; at least she didn’t pull back right away. “Are we done here?”

Lee relinquished his grip on her and stepped back. “Yeah.” He swallowed hard, unable to tear his gaze from her. “That’s it.” He could feel his pulse pounding in head as he watched her leave.

\---

Faith’s intention had been to spend some quality time with the punching bag, but when she walked into the weight room and saw Helo pedaling away on the exercise bike, she had a better idea. He looked over at her, sweat trickling down his jawline and only broke his pace when she tossed a pair of focus mitts in his direction.

“C’mon,” she called over to him. “I wanna hit somethin’, might as well be you.”

Helo stepped off the bike, grabbing for his towel and wiping the dampness from his neck and shoulders. “I’m flattered, really,” he said, “that you think I’m worth a little bit more than the punching bag.”

“Less actually,” she said as she strapped on a pair of training gloves. “Your face is just a lot more motivating. Not gonna be fightin’ cylons for a while, might as well fight the next best thing.” He didn’t move. “I’m bein’ nice. I could hit you without the pads y’know. It’d be a hell of a lot more fun.” She pounded her padded fists together watching for his reaction. “What? Scared?” She grinned when he stooped over, picking up the pads.

Shaking his head, he tossed the towel aside and slipped his hands into the grips, walking towards her. “Fine.” Faith bounced up onto the balls of her feet as he bent his knees, getting into a firm stance in front of her, almost daring her to try and knock him off his feet.

She threw a warm up jab at the left pad, not much, just getting the blood flowing. She followed through quickly with a cross to the same pad followed by an elbow to the right. _Frakking_ Galactica. Jab. Cross. Hook. Uppercut. _Frakking Starbuck, frakking Apollo_. Jab. Cross. Hook. Uppercut._ Or actually, not frakking’d be more like it._ A deep growl formed at the back of her throat, her hits landing harder, moving faster, nearly knocking Helo off his balance. _Both of them wound so godsdamned tight, they were gonna snap any minute and they didn’t even know it. Godsdamned morons. _

“You really hate it here.”

Overhand. Backfist. She stepped back and threw a roundhouse kick at the right pad. “The guy’s got eyes.” She landed another strike, grunting for emphasis.

“It just might be easier if you spent a little more time making friends instead of enemies.”

**Elbow. Jab. Uppercut. Hook. Backfist. **

Helo drew his hand back, shaking it out. “What’s the matter, toaster frakker?” she snapped. “Too much for you?” She bounced on the balls of her feet, waiting for him to hold the pad back up. “What was that you were sayin’ ‘bout makin’ friends?”

Helo’s eyes narrowed, bracing for the next impact. “We’re on the same side, in the same fleet. _All of us_.” He set his stance firmer than before. “But ever since you got here you’ve been treating us like the enemy.”

“My _Pegasus_ buddies are dicks.” She landed a backhanded strike against the pad. “They’re not nice. I’m not nice. I got no delusions about that. We fight hard.” Jab. “Dirty.” Hook. “And we have fun doin’ it.” Cross. “Because there’s no better world out there. You guys have this frakked up idea that we’re runnin’ to save our lives, but our lives are over. There. Is. Nothing. Left.” Each word was marked with another blow. “Nothin’ ‘cept revenge. So, get your kicks where you can.” Her final strike hit him in the solar plexus causing him to recoil. “ ‘Cause we’re already standin’ in our grave.” She spread her arms wide before dropping them to her side, a slightly maniacal grin crossed her lips. “And if you think otherwise, you’re the delusional ones.”

His eyes remained locked on hers as he gathered his breath. “You never call them your friends,” he said when he finally had enough air.

“Huh?”

“You say you’re ‘tight’ or that you’re buddies. You tell stories about messing around, getting in trouble, stealing people’s things, but I’ve never heard you say anything about you sticking your neck out for them… or any of them sticking their neck out for you.”

“The frak’s your point?” Any more of this _Galactica_ touchy-feely crap and she was gonna vomit.

“Do you trust them?” He pulled off the focus mitts and sat down on the weight bench.

She gritted her teeth. What the hell right did he have questioning her trust in the guys who had her back, the ones she’d been fighting alongside for months? “With my life.”

Helo nodded slowly. It clearly was not the answer he had been looking for—what the hell did he want to hear?—but before he had the chance to say something else, someone was calling his name.

Faith glanced towards the hatch to see Starbuck entering the room, her gaze pointedly fixed away from her. She tapped Helo on the shoulder, motioning for him to move off the bench. “Spot me.”

The raptor jock quickly followed Starbuck’s order, completely ignoring Faith as well. Faith stripped off her gloves as she watched as his dark head bent low over the bar, spotting the blonde captain’s reps. Starbuck fumbled with the bar a second and Helo’s hands shot out immediately, steadying it. The captain said something low she didn’t quite catch and Agathon’s whole face lit up, laughing. Faith’s stomach twisted and she didn’t even notice when her gloves dropped to the floor.

  
\---

Ten minutes later, Helo and Kara were alone in the gym. “Why’re you pushing yourself so hard, Kara?” Helo kept his hands lightly on the barbell as gravity pulled it down towards her chest and she fought right back against it, pushing it upwards. “I know dealing with Slayer isn’t exactly a walk in the park.” When she didn’t respond to his bitter understatement, he tried to switch topics. Helo had an idea of what had really been bothering Kara lately. “I heard you tried to talk to the Old Man about sending a SAR team back to Caprica.”

“I wanted a spotter, Helo.” She grunted softly as she set the barbell back into place and pulling herself up to sit. “Not a color commentator.”

He watched her as she crossed to the other side of the room, picking up a pair of free weights. That answered his next question. It most definitely was not going well.

\---

“Dear Lords of Kobol, please bring me a pony and a plastic Viper.”

Kara nearly jumped a foot at the sound of Faith’s voice. She shoved the small metal figures under her pillow, even though it was already too late to hide them from the lieutenant. Faith was leaning on the closed hatch, arms folded across her chest and it seemed like she’d been watching her for a little while at least. “Y’know, K, I never pegged you for the religious type.”

Pegasus Psycho was walking an excruciatingly thin line now. “My faith is none of your business.”

“Seriously, do you think they actually pay attention? If there are gods don’t you think they got big plans going on, good versus evil, better things to do than listen to a _frak up_ like you?”

Those words. _Frak up_. They weren’t meant as an insult, but godsdamnit it would have been so much easier if they were. Faith hadn’t even moved and yet Kara still felt pinned to the spot. Faith’s dark eyes had locked onto her own and weren’t letting go, in fact they seemed to be looking right through her. “Kat has this crazy idea that you think you’re better than everyone else,” Faith said as she pushed away from the door. The swing in her hips was distractingly predatory.

Kara could feel her heart hammering away in her chest, the beginning of an adrenaline rush, half-anger and half-something else entirely. “Kat needs to learn to keep her mouth shut.”

“She’s a bright kid,” Faith admitted. “But she’s wrong. See, I don’t think you think you’re better. You’re not better. In fact, you’re just a mistake. Probably would’ve caused a hell of a lot less trouble if someone did you in years ago.” She gave a light shrug of her shoulders as she strode ever closer. “‘Cause you’re not even worth the oh-two you’re sucking down.”

“Shut. The. Frak. Up.”

“Make me, _sir_.”

Faith clearly was not braced for the left hook to her face. The force of the punch spun her halfway around, nearly knocking her off her feet. As she turned back towards Kara, she was wiping blood from the corner of her mouth. Her chest rose as she laughed, a wicked glint in her eyes. “Gonna have to do better than that.”

Kara brought up her hand to block Faith’s retaliating blow. She deflected the strike, grabbed her wrist, and trapped Faith’s arm between them; she could feel Faith’s pulse rise against her touch, see her eyes darkening. Her full lips parted slightly and something else was going to come pouring from there any second unless Kara found a way to get her to keep that mouth closed.

She wrapped her free arm around the back of Faith’s neck, grabbing a fistful of that dark hair. Kara pulled her close and crushed her lips against hers. Whatever the lieutenant had planned—or not planned as the case probably was—died as a groan in the back of her throat.

It might have only been seconds, but it could have been longer; she was just starting to get lost in the taste of Faith’s lips under her own when she felt her trying to wrench her arm free. Kara pulled back, but just barely. She was still close enough to feel Faith’s breath mingling with her own as she tried to stop her ragged panting. Must have been more than seconds.

From the way Faith had fought to free herself, she expected her to turn, run, leave. And she waited. Waited for any twitch of muscle to show that she was about to move. But she didn’t move, her eyes focused hazily on Kara’s lips. Finally, she knew why Faith had wanted her arm back. The lieutenant grabbed her firmly by the waist of her pants, and tugged her hips forward.

Faith’s lips crashed on hers, more insistent, as her hands wandered around to Kara’s back. Kara arched against her, feeling the drag of nails against the small of her back. Her hands made their own way up Faith’s sides, over the curves in all the right places and up to her face where she finally pushed her back. “That,” she gasped, remembering that the plan had been to shut her up. “That was not a frakking invitation.”

This was a mistake; she was still trying to sort out the confusion from her last one-night stand on Caprica, and this was not helping. But frak, Faith knew what she was doing with those hands.

“Certainly felt like one, sir.”

Kara recognized that tone of voice. It was that same high, breathy, laughter she exuded when she stepped out of her cockpit. Her eyes tore into Kara, glowing with lust, daring her.

What was one more mistake on the list?

Faith gave a sharp cry as Kara shoved her back against the ladder connecting their racks and pinned her in place—her knee wedged firmly against Faith’s hip. The lieutenant’s hands groped for the hem of Kara’s tanks, but she grabbed her wrists and pushed them up over her head, bracing them there as she hungrily attacked Faith’s lips. Kara’s tongue slid out, stroking with purpose over Faith’s lower lip, which dropped with a soft gasp. Faith’s hips were just as insistent, bucking against Kara’s, either pleading for attention or trying to free herself from the captain’s grip.

For the first time in a week, Kara was finally in control and frak did it feel good. She held Faith’s wrists in place with her left hand, and moved down brushing over Faith’s belly and moving to undo her fly.

That was another mistake.

Kara’s head barely cleared the top of her rack as Faith rocked against her, breaking away from the ladder, and shoved her down onto the thin mattress. She groaned softly as she felt Slayer’s knee pressing between her legs, grinding against her; the damp fabric of Kara’s briefs clung to her, rubbed against stimulated skin, and godsdamnit her body was craving more. Faith leaned over her, dark hair falling off her shoulders and brushing against Kara’s cheek, her lips curled into a victorious grin as she rucked up Kara’s tanks and pulled them over her head. Faith’s hands roamed her body, grabbing, claiming, teasing, snapping her fly open and scrabbling into her pants, sliding inside her briefs and sending waves of white heat pulsing through her.

No. It was not going to happen this way. When Faith bent her head, distracted by lips and teeth working along Kara’s collarbone, Kara grabbed a hold of Faith’s waistband, shoving her pants and briefs down her thighs. With no warning, she slid two fingers up into her, eliciting a sharp moan.

And just for a second, Faith’s guard was down.

One second was all Kara needed.

You could die in one second.

She flipped Faith over onto her back and held her there, hovering above her watching the fury that couldn’t quite pierce the arousal, the need for release. “Frak you,” her prey breathed.

“Shut up, Faith.”

Silence. Well, not exactly with the groans, the cries, the reluctant guttural plea for more as Kara drove her over the edge, fingers curled inside her and thumb working hard circles over her clit, but at least she wasn’t talking anymore. The silence was after, as she lay beneath Kara, panting heavily, eyes hazy as the world slowly came back to her.

Later, Kara wasn’t quite sure when she’d let her guard drop enough for Faith to flip her over, shove her down onto her back once again, but she didn't much care, since the lieutenant’s lips and tongue were working her into ecstasy.

Seemed revenge was sweet after all.

 

\--End Chapter--


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Life's simple. Want. Take. Have. That's all I'm sayin'."

“Morning, sir.”

Lee looked up at the chipper greeting issuing from his newest problem pilot and fleetingly wondered if Cottle had performed a surprise lobotomy in the middle of the night. He wouldn’t put it past him, after getting a dose of Slayer’s usual attitude when she and Starbuck had taken their little field trip to sick bay. She had railed on, insisting she was fine and the doc was a quack who didn’t know what he was talking about. Cottle had had to give her injured arm a firm yank to get her to stop protesting long enough for him to examine what turned out to be a sprain.

He stopped in his tracks, watching as Slayer strode towards him, her hands shoved deep into her pockets, lips curled in an expansive grin, and just a glimmer of something in those dark eyes. He couldn’t quite place what it was but he was pretty sure he didn’t like it. “Morning, Lieutenant,” he said with a brief nod of his head, refusing to let her disarm him with the new tactic of actually acting like a soldier.

“Sleep well?” she asked.

“Just fine,” he replied, fighting the urge to raise an eyebrow as she rocked back on her heels. He waited for whatever smart-ass reply she had in store for him and yet nothing came. She stayed silent for once and stood there smiling like Lee was missing out on a really fantastic joke. Whatever it was, if it was making Slayer happy, he did not want to hear it. “Do you need something?” he finally asked.

Slayer held her hand to her chest in mock disbelief, drawing in an exaggerated gasp of air. “What makes you think I want anything?”

Despite the self-satisfied air she was carrying around with her, which was really par for the course, he almost felt like giving her credit for keeping her voice at a level that wouldn’t rupture eardrums. “I’m not returning you to flight status.”

Slayer’s face fell, her lips tightening into a straight line. “Yeah. Whatever you say, sir,” she grumbled with a noncommittal shrug of her shoulders before continuing off down the corridor. He watched her leave before resuming on his walk to the mess hall.

He reached the hall and was about to step into the food queue when he saw Kara sitting off by herself, not eating but rather forcefully poking her breakfast with her fork. She leaned her elbow on the table, her chin on her hand, and her face was knit into an expression that wasn’t quite anger and wasn’t quite confusion. He could relate. “If the worlds hadn’t already ended, I’d say we should be worried,” he said, taking up a seat next to her.

Kara shook her head as she was jerked out of whatever thoughts she’d been absorbed in. It seemed to take her a moment for reality to sink in. “Huh?”

Lee sank back in his chair a bit. “I just had what might pass as a civilized conversation with Slayer.” He waited for Kara to reply but she had resumed absently stabbing at her food. After a moment he continued. “I wonder what’s gotten in to her.”

She still didn’t look up from her plate. “Maybe she made friends with her right hand,” she muttered and Lee couldn’t stifle the short laugh.

“Well if she’s figured out a way to deal with her crap that doesn’t involve injuring my pilots, I’m good.” It was only then that he realized Kara was not laughing as well. It took less than a second after that for it to click into place that Slayer’s mirth and Kara’s distracted state were not just coincidental. He watched her for a few more moments before he spoke again. “Thinking about things you want to do to Slayer?” he asked.

Kara turned towards him, eyebrow raised, before he gestured to her semi-violent grip on her fork. She released the utensil and it clattered against the table; she ran her fingers through her hair. “I hate her.” Her voice was even, not frustrated, just stating a fact. “She just… gets under my skin. I mean she knew exactly what to say to…” Kara bit her lip, shaking her head softly. “Ugh. You know what? Forget it.”

Lee got the strong feeling that last sentence was directed not at him but to herself, and for once he felt compelled to let it go as well. He decided to try another plan of attack. “Do you want to get a drink on _Cloud 9_ tonight?”

Kara snorted an incredulous laugh but when Lee didn’t laugh with her, a smirk started to creep onto her face.

“What?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at her.

She leaned her elbows on the table, glancing sideways at him. “It sounded like you just asked me on a date, Apollo.”

Well. It hadn’t quite sounded that way in his head, but replaying the words, he realized it did sound very much like a date. He spoke quickly, trying to hide his embarrassment. “Well, it’s just that a couple of long overdue R&amp;R rotations are coming up, so some people are getting together for some, what do you call it? Fun. I think that’s what it’s called anyway, been so long since we had some.”

“And the ‘some people’ are?” she prompted.

“Well so far it’s Dee and Billy and… me… and…”

“Dee and Billy?” Kara echoed with a laugh. “Lee, you do remember catching them making out in the storage locker off Causeway B right?” Her eyes glimmered with amusement and her face split into a wide grin. It had been so long since Lee had seen that expression on her that he didn’t even care that she was mocking him. “Now it just sounds like you’re asking me on a double date.”

“I think you’re dreaming it,” he said, grinning back.

Kara’s smile softened, holding his gaze for just a moment before she averted her gaze. She reached for her mug, glancing into the dark liquid that barely passed for coffee these days.

Lee nudged her gently with his elbow. “Come on. A chance to get off the ship and,” he added pointedly, “away from you-know-who.”

“Alright, alright.” She took another sip, caught somewhere between smiling at him and frowning at the bitter taste. “But just because you being a third wheel to those kids is really kind of pathetic, Lee.”

“Your charity is touching,” he said flatly, “really.”

“Well, it only goes so far,” she said, giving him a wink as she raised the mug to her lips once again. “You’re buying.”

  
\---

Kat knew better than to startle someone with a gun in their hand. She’d been passing by the firing range when she saw Slayer through the glass, taking careful aim at the image of a centurion on the target. Her face was a study in intense concentration, as she fired until the chamber rang empty. That was when Kat walked up behind her. “You’re in a good mood, today,” she shouted, knowing Slayer was anything but.

She gave a half-hearted shrug as she slid the noise-canceling muffs down around her neck. “Five by five.”

Kat crossed her arms over her chest, making herself comfortable as she leaned on the wall. “So no chance I’m gonna get to fly your wing any time soon?”

“Yeah,” Slayer said with a laugh, detaching the magazine from the sidearm. Kat’s glance flicked down to the paper bullseye. She’d been at this for a while; entire sections of the target had been shredded away. It seemed like her ultimate goal was to destroy the entire thing. “That’ll happen when the CAG gets that big old stick out from his ass.” She paused looking thoughtful before gesturing with her index finger. “Or laid. Laid works too.”

“Nah.” Kat shook her head. “The way I hear it, he was getting plenty over on _Cloud 9_.”

Slayer grabbed an extra pair of the earmuffs and tossed them over to Kat before sliding her own back into place and reloading the magazine. “Maybe if he and Starbuck get bouncy they’ll both stop bein’ such stuck-up tightasses,” she shouted to be heard before emptying the magazine into the target, taking a large chunk of paper with it.

“You noticed that already?”

“I noticed it day one.” Slayer set the gun aside and took off the muffs once again. “If they want in each other’s pants so bad, why the hell aren’t they frakkin’?”

“I think it falls under ‘it’s complicated.’ ” Kat shrugged removing hers as well. “We’ve got a pool going though on when they finally get around to it.”

“Damn,” Slayer said, sounding fully impressed. “How come no one told me ‘bout that?”

“Maybe because everyone here hates your guts?”

Slayer smiled and nodded an understanding. “Right. That.”

Kat pushed away from the wall, striding closer to her. “So what’re you doing tonight?”

“Can’t think of anythin’,” she said, removing her yellow safety goggles.

“A couple of us are planning a strip triad game tonight in the rec room. Wanna come?”

“Thought everyone hated me,” she repeated Kat’s earlier statement.

Kat was unable to hide the smile at her own words. “Well they’ll just have a lot of fun trying to get you naked, then.”

“Them?” Slayer asked, hooking her thumbs under her belt as she leveled a challenging look at Kat. “Or you?”

Kat simply bounced her eyebrows in response. “Come on, we might actually avoid injuries because Starbuck’s not gonna be there tonight.”

Slayer raised an eyebrow. “Where’s Starbuck goin’?”

“Where Starbuck’s ‘goin’’ is none of your business.” The two lieutenants turned their heads in unison to see the subject of their conversation entering the firing range with her sidearm in her hand. “Glad to see you two are so productive, sitting around gossping like some frakking school kids.”

“Standing around, actually.” Slayer corrected her with a little bit of a smirk. Kat watched the look that passed between them, there was the usual irritation from both parties, but something more. Slayer’s attitude had gone beyond her usual into a smugness Kat hadn’t seen on her before.

Starbuck turned away from them. “Get out. Both of you.”

Kat gave a brief salute and had started from the room before she realized Slayer was not following her. She turned back to see Slayer standing a few feet behind Starbuck, her arms crossed, her stance wide. Kat jerked her head towards the door and was met with a shake of the head. Slayer waved her on and Kat got the strong feeling that this was going nowhere good. She turned and quickly left the firing range.

\---

“I told you to get out. That’s an order.”

Faith picked up her sidearm once again. “I was in the middle of target practice.”

“Didn’t look like it to me.”

Faith jerked her thumb towards her nearly obliterated target and Kara’s eyes narrowed into a glare. Faith could feel her own amusement rising again at the look. She slid her goggles and muffs back on, watching Starbuck take careful aim at her own target and fire off every cartridge in the magazine. All of the bullets struck the center of the target, but in a sporadic pattern rather than all concentrated in the same spot. “High accuracy, low precision.” Faith called over to her. “Something bugging you?”

Kara turned towards Slayer and saw the broad grin that crossed her lips. She tilted her head and surveyed the younger pilot. “You think you’ve got me all figured out, huh?” Her voice was low, threatening, incongruous with the small smile she wore. “Like you know a godsdamned thing about my life?” She stalked towards her.

Faith gave a brief nod of her head, not intimated by the posturing. “Y’already tipped your hand, K.” She smiled triumphantly. “Last night, if I wasn’t tellin’ you somethin’ you’d already heard before—a lot of times before—I figure I’d be lyin’ in sickbay bleedin’ out the side of my head or somethin’.”

“That can still be arranged,” Kara said, gesturing to the gun in her hand.

Faith rolled her eyes as she turned to leave. “Y’already emptied that clip, Starbuck. Keep track of these things.” Just before the hatch, she froze and turned back to Kara. “Lemme give you a piece of advice.”

“If I wanted your advice, I’d ask for it.” Kara gave a dismissive jerk of her head, not turning to look at her.

Faith shrugged. “Life’s simple. Want. Take. Have. That’s all I’m sayin’.” She left the room wondering if it was too late to get in on this pool.

\---

By the time Helo reached the card game that evening, Racetrack was already down to her bra, Kat had lost her belt and her boots, Hotdog was pantsless, and Slayer’s left foot was bare, her toes tapping against the cold metal floor. He ran a hand through his hair, still matted and slightly damp with sweat from his helmet. He’d been accosted about an hour before by Kara—dressed in all black and looking like she’d run a brush through her hair for once. She’d missed the shuttle over to Cloud 9 and it took some string pulling on his part, but he’d gotten the clearance to fly her over.

When they had arrived, he wished her good luck.

“With what?” she’d asked.

He’d cast a very pointed look at the way her blouse showed off her cleavage, and she’d rolled her eyes as she left the Raptor. He spent most of the flight back to _Galactica_ thinking about the rumor he’d heard about her showing up to Colonial Day in a dress. A once-in-a-lifetime event and he’d missed it running for his life on Caprica.

“Ah ah ah,” Slayer’s voice halted him as he pulled a chair up to the table. “Lateness penalty?” She suggested casting a glance around the table. From the other pilots’ reactions, it sounded like it was the first good thing she’d said all night.

Racetrack nodded an agreement. “I think he should lose the tanks.”

“One,” Helo said, as he peeled off the brown tank and let the fabric fall onto the floor. “Happy now?”

“Not really,” Slayer said, shuffling the cards. “But it’ll do for now.”

\---

Slayer was stripping off her grey tank when Duck ran into the rec room, looking like he’d sprinted clear from the other end of the ship. “Have you guys heard?”

“Heard what?” Hotdog asked, now completely bare except for his briefs It had not been his night.

Duck held onto the back of Helo’s chair taking a moment to catch his breath. “Some terrorists took hostages at one of the bars on _Cloud 9_.”

Murmurs of “Oh gods”s and “I can’t believe it”s filled the room, even from beyond the card game. Cards went forgotten as people crowded around, trying to pry more information out of Duck. What happened? Where were they from? Was anyone hurt? “I don’t know, I don’t know!” He said, “I just know that they’re making demands.”

“What do they want?” Helo asked.

Duck didn’t need to say anything. His silence and awkward look at Helo was answer enough. Karl pushed his seat back from the table and quickly fled the room.

Slayer looked at the cards in her hand and threw them down on the table. Game over. She glanced up just in time to see Helo disappear from sight. For the briefest moment, she felt her leg twitch, her body wanting to move before her brain gave her the all clear. She pushed herself out of her seat, trailing him out into the corridor. She watched his back retreat down the passageway and wondered for a moment why she’d gotten up in the first place.

It wasn’t like she gave a flying frak—if the terrorists wanted the toaster they could have her as far as Faith was concerned, and the cylon frakker might as well be a cylon himself for all she cared. And if she did follow him what would she say? Sorry? She wasn’t. Best she could do was offer him something to hit, a little physical therapy. Instead, she turned on her heel and headed back to the pilots’ quarters.

\---

It had been a while, Faith didn’t know how long for sure, when the hatch squealed open and Starbuck entered, already unbuttoning her blouse as she walked over to her locker and threw the door open. Faith cast a glance down at her from behind the tattered, old tattoo magazine she’d been reading for the fiftieth time. “Hey, sounds like I missed a party. No R&amp;R for the wicked and all that.” But Kara didn’t answer her—Faith wondered if she’d even heard her—she was studiously, but speedily, casting aside her clothes and getting back into uniform before disappearing from the room once again.

Raising an eyebrow, Faith tossed the magazine aside, a few pages finally breaking away from the binding and flying out across the rack. As she slid down the ladder, she picked up Kara’s black pants from the bed and noticed a few dark, damp stains. When she pulled her hand away and noticed the red stains on herself, she realized it was blood.

  
For the second time that night, she trailed a superior office out into the passageway. This time she kept going, following all the way down to sickbay, which hummed with a little more activity than usual. When she finally caught up to Kara she was standing beside one of the beds. Her view of its occupant was blocked. It was only when she stepped up alongside Kara that she finally saw Lee Adama lying there. His eyes were closed, his breathing was shallow, but it looked like he was going to live. “Holy frak, what happened?”

Kara was silent as she stared down at him; she’d crossed her arms over herself, and it looked like her fingernails were digging into her arms. It seemed like she actually needed a moment to find her voice, because when she did speak her voice was full of a bitterness that if Faith hadn’t already called her out last night, it would’ve confirmed every suspicion she had about the captain. “Me.” And she turned on her heel and left the room.

Faith rolled her eyes and trailed her out into the corridor once again. “Okay, so you shot the guy you wanna frak. What’s the big? He’s gonna live.”

“You have no _frakking_ idea what you’re talking about,” Kara spun back towards her, voice raised to the point that the words must have stung her throat on the way out. The heads of those in the corridor turned towards them, and Kara seethed with frustration. She caught Slayer by the arm, dragging her down a corridor to the nearest storage locker, shoving her inside, and slamming the hatch shut behind them.

“Gods!” Faith hissed as she caught her balance. “What the hell is that ‘bout!?”

“I am _done_ with this!” She screamed, grabbing her by her arms, shoving her up against the wall. Faith cried out as her back hit the hard metal, sending a wave of pain shooting through her. “I am done with _you_! You have caused nothing but hell ever since you got here! You don’t belong here! You don’t belong in my life, and that is _it_. You’re _done_.”

Kara’s chest rose and fell erratically, her grip on Slayer’s arms tightening until Faith was sure she’d dislocate her shoulder if she moved the wrong way. Even in the dim light of the storage locker, Faith could see dampness on her cheek. And before she knew it, Kara’s lips were bruising her, pouring every last bit of anger, shame, and hatred into the kiss, as she released her arms and slid her hands around to claw at Faith’s back.

She brought her own hands up, tangling her fists in Kara’s hair. She was ready to go along for the ride.

\---

Kara wasn’t sure how long she’d been caught up in Faith’s body, but she felt… not good. Numb. Pleasantly, blissfully numb, and far too comfortable to try to pry Faith off her. Besides, if she tried to move, tried to think of anything it would all just come back to her—how she’d frakked up that shot, how she’d almost gotten the other Adama brother killed. No, she pushed the thought away and concentrated on Faith’s arm draped across her torso.

She was almost surprised by how the lieutenant just collapsed, half-over her with a contented sigh, rather than dash off with a “that was great, I need a shower” again. Kara absently traced her finger over the black ink that trailed over Faith’s bicep. The dark swirls turned in on each other, touching once before curling away in different directions, spiking outward—almost symmetrical, but not, almost as though the lines could not make up their mind, which way to go, where to turn, so they went everywhere and nowhere and ultimately ended in spiny thorns as a warning not to get too close.

When Kara dragged her finger across one pathway of the tattoo, her finger brushed up against a bit of puckered skin. A long scar marking the skin underneath the ink caught her attention. She’d said “What’s that?” before she even realized she was speaking. Faith turned her head to glance over at the arm, her face now buried against Kara’s neck.

Faith’s voice was nonchalant as she answered, like it didn’t matter—but you don’t bury a scar with a tattoo for nothing. “Little present from mommy dearest,” she said. She said it like she’d told the story many times, but Kara got the feeling it was the only time Faith had ever told anyone. In fact, it must have been the same post-coital haze that let her give those words up, because gods knew if it was Kara, she would’ve kept them locked away.

Kara watched her own hand as she traced her finger over the scar once again and Faith rolled her eyes. She pushed Kara back down onto the floor and moved over her, straddling her hips. “So I was right, wasn’t I? Figured we had _somethin’ _in common.”

Faith leaned forward, her hair falling off her shoulders and brushing lightly over Kara’s breasts. “Come on, K. You don’t get somethin’ for nothin’.”

Kara shuddered slightly, still too spent to bother trying to move. Looking up into those dark eyes they no longer pinned her to the spot. The gaze no longer pierced her, leaving traces of the lieutenant there crawling and gnawing under her skin. “Fine,” she replied. “One question. That’s it.”

“Alright,” she said, tracing a finger over Kara’s cheek, down her neck, and between her breasts. “Your tags. Where’s the other one?”

And suddenly Kara found some strength she didn’t know she had and began to sit up, her hand pressing against Faith’s shoulder to move her away; she fought right back, pushing Kara down onto the floor, pinning her wrists down over her head. “Nuh-uh,” she said with a grin. “You’re not goin’ anywhere ‘til I get my answer, K.”

“I hate it when you call me that.”

“Dog tag. Where is it?”

Kara huffed a frustrated burst of air. “It’s on Caprica, alright?”

Faith’s lips curled into an amused smirk. “Did you just leave it behind last time you were on shore leave? Good job.” A quick series of giggles followed her words.

“Cut it out.” Kara was in no position to knee Faith, otherwise she would’ve. Clearly she was not satisfied with Kara’s answer, because she made no move to release her grip. Faith laughed again. Kara rolled her eyes. “I jumped back there.”

Faith’s eyes widened, “The frak would you do somethin’ like that f-”

“There are people back there—alive.” Kara wanted to go on, wanted to tell her about how they needed to go back, not because she wanted to tell her about it, but with the Admiral and the President refusing to listen to reason (wasn’t it their job to protect what was left of humanity?) she needed someone to believe her.

Faith was not that person. “And…?” She prompted.

Kara closed her eyes.

_I’m coming back. I said it, I meant it._

“There was a guy.”

It seemed to be too much for Faith. She fell onto her side laughing, but finally relinquishing her grip on Kara.

“Shut up.” Kara growled, as she rubbed her wrists.

“Must’ve been a really good frak,” she managed to gasp out between fits of snorting laughs. “O-or was it love at first sight?” Faith clutched her arms around her stomach unable to contain herself. Glaring, Kara slammed a fist into Faith’s shoulder.

“He saved my ass down there,” she said pointedly. “I owe him, and the rest of the resistance, for that.”

“And you left your dog tag with him? What? You get all weepy telling him you’d come back for him?” Faith rubbed at the sore spot on her arm, she wasn’t laughing anymore but that stupid grin would not leave her face.

“Yeah, well it seemed like a good idea at the time,” she admitted.

“I dunno,” Faith said, sighing out the last of her amusement and sinking against her once again. “Seems like a lot of trouble for a one night stand or whatever.”

Kara almost laughed, the tiniest hint of a smile forming on her face as she rolled her eyes. “You’re a one night stand.”

“You suck at math," Faith replied, her voice low as she nipped at Kara's ear.

Kara punched her again, lightly this time, and they lay in silence for a little longer, every once in a while the lieutenant would make some sort of amused snort against Kara’s shoulder. Kara found the ink on Faith’s arm once again, studying the swirls a bit closer now, brushing her finger over the center, the one spot where they touched before curling away from each other. “Want, take, have. Right?”

“That’s the idea,” Faith said with a purr. “What do you want, K?”

“Right now?” To knock some frakking sense into the Old Man and Roslin. “A shower.” She slipped away from Faith, tugging on enough clothing to avoid drawing gawking eyes as she slipped out of the storage locker.

 

\--End Chapter--


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You're going to be a pain in my ass for a long time to come. No way I could ever be lucky enough to get rid of you."

Slayer gave a grunt when Helo’s padded fist hit her squarely in the solar plexus, she stumbled back for a moment before regaining her balance and returning the jab in full. “I get it,” she said. “Admiral’s little boy gets a bullet to the chest and gets bumped up to Major. Whatev.” She shook out her shoulders, bouncing up on the balls of her feet. She was watching him for a weak spot. “What pisses me off is that right after _that_, Adama turns around and hands him _Pegasus_.” She threw a punch towards Helo’s head and he stepped back, raising his arm to block it. “What the frak is that about?”

Helo’d never call their sparring matches friendly, but they’d gone beyond Faith wanting to hit something and him being the convenient option. They’d been meeting up every once in a while since Faith’s arrival on _Galactica_, but during the five days since Starbuck had been sent over to _Pegasus_ Faith had come looking for a fight every day—the kitchen duty she’d been on the past six weeks was turning her into a time-bomb. “He saved the ship when Garner couldn’t,” Helo said, stepping forward with a quick series of jabs. “Apollo deserves the command.”

“All I’m sayin’ is if he can’t handle me, ain’t no way he’s cut out to be in charge of_ Pegasus_.” Slayer stood back, holding her arms open wide as a shining example of being a pain in the ass.

Helo almost laughed as he reached for his towel. “Well, in all fairness to Apollo, you’re insane.” He dabbed at the sweat trickling down his face. “I know for a fact that there were at least three times he almost put you back on rotation, maybe more, and every single time you managed to do something to piss him off.”

“Not one of ‘em was my fault. The fight in the mess hall? Didn’t start it. Fire? Accident.” Slayer lowered herself down on the weight bench, stretching her arms over her head.

“Was running your fist into the CAG’s face also an accident?”

“No,” she admitted, sounding almost delighted. “That one was a plan.”

“A plan to what? Get sent to the brig? Because if it was, congratulations. It worked.”

She gave a brief shrug as though shaking off all responsibility. “He told me he wasn’t gonna let me back in the cockpit ‘til I saw a shrink.”

Helo stood there blinking at her. “And you thought punching him seemed like a good way to convince him you were sane?”

“Wasn’t really thinking. Besides, it was after he was up and about. Wouldn’t hit a guy lyin’ in sickbay.” Slayer pulled herself to her feet, pounding her padded fists together and looking like she was ready for round two. “C’mon.”

“You’re lucky.” Helo set his towel aside. “I know for a fact the only reason you got out of that one was because Starbuck talked Apollo out of pressing charges.”

Slayer’s hands fell to her sides. It was a blow she couldn’t have seen coming. “K did what?”

He gave a shrug. “I don’t know how and I don’t know why. Kara’s never really been the type to talk about what’s on her mind. But if I were you, I’d just be grateful.” He slipped off the padded gloves and tossed them in Slayer’s direction. They landed at her feet, match over. As he turned to leave the room, his amused smile hidden from his opponent, he called over his shoulder. “She’s coming back to _Galactica_, you know.”

\---

“Commander Adama,” Kara mused, as she watched Lee open up his duffle on his rack and begin to pack his belongings, his life on _Galactica_, away. “Call me crazy but it sounds like it’s been done before.”

“Funny,” he said over his shoulder, a hint of tension in his voice. She decided to chalk it up to the pressure of his impending new duties. “Hilarious, actually. Do you write your own material?”

“I just work with what you give me.” She pushed herself up from where she sat on her own rack. “Good luck, you’re gonna need it. A lot of people over there aren’t exactly fans of ‘The Bucket.’”.She wrinkled her nose in annoyance. “Case in point, no one letting me know about the missing Raptors until Garner was rubbing it in my face.”

“I think you’re the one who’s going to need the help, Kara. Because along with my old job, you have all of Slayer’s fantastic attitude problems to deal with on your own.” Lee’s voice sounded strange, strangled almost, and he was focused intensely on his packing. In fact, he was nearly shoving the stuff in the bag now. “Though, some people have heard the two of you finding a way to _work things out_.”

Wary of the tension, that was suddenly in the room, Kara shrugged noncommittally, although Lee didn’t see it with his back turned to her. Lately, she felt like that’s all she ever saw of him (even if it was her own fault), and it was all she could do to not grab him by the shoulders and turn him to face her. This was probably the longest time they’d spent alone in the same room, let alone conversation held, since that frakup on _Cloud 9_ last month. The last time she’d even gone up to him was a week and a half before, when a right hook to Lee’s face had landed Slayer in the brig. It wasn’t like she was running to Faith’s defense, but Kara and Lee had had their share of fist fights in the past. She’d been shocked when he’d simply nodded at her reasoning and dropped the charges. But he hadn’t said a word to her about it. She figured it was fine, and she wasn’t sure why he seems so pissed off now. “Lee…”

“Word doesn’t get around to sickbay as fast as it gets around to other parts of the ship.” His words were clipped and furious, and Kara thought, _Oh_. She should have known this conversation was going to happen eventually. “I got a lot of visitors. My father, Roslin, Dee, Billy, but not you. Never you.”

“That has nothing to do with-”

“I didn’t believe it at first.” Lee shook his head, looking like he was in disbelief of his own idiocy. “Then right after I heard, there you are, looking to bail her out of the brig. Gods! Were you just so busy screwing around with Slayer that you couldn’t come and-”

“I_ shot _you, Lee!” Kara’s hands dropped to her sides, fists clenched tight, knuckles white, and nails digging into her skin. “I put a frakking bullet in your chest!”

“I know! I’ve got the scar to prove it!” Lee shot back, finally turning around to face her. His eyes locked onto hers, and he wasn’t even trying to hide the pain that lingered there. And the worst part was that he was right.

“I could’ve killed you.”

“But you didn’t.”

“Well…” she shook her head as she searched for the right comeback, but she opened her mouth all she could shout was “Good!”

“Great!” Lee yelled back at her, his arms opening at his sides.

“I’m glad I didn’t kill you!” Kara screamed as she stepped towards him, watching the way his chest rose and fell until one seething breath of air turned into a short, sharp laugh.

“Well, so am I!” Lee’s voice sounded tight, like he was trying to stay angry, but there was a smile tugging away at the corner of his lips. He ducked his head as another laugh escaped his lips, and Kara couldn’t help but grin as well.

When Lee raised his head to look at her, she suddenly found herself with his arms around her shoulders. As she slipped her arms around his back, she leaned her chin against his shoulder and closed her eyes, feeling the beating of his heart against her chest. Good. It was a good feeling and it was going to stay that way.

“Lords,” she said, half-laughing herself, “we suck at this.”

She felt him lean his cheek against her forehead. “What part?”

“Want a list?” she smirked. “I was thinking mostly about us—speaking again right when you’re going away.”

“Well,” he said, pulling back but keeping his arms planted firmly on her shoulders. “Your timing does suck.” Her jaw dropped but before she could retort, he pressed on. “Besides. I think you’re going a little farther away than I am.”

Kara raised an eyebrow.

“My dad has something he wants to talk to you about.” Lee was grinning the grin of “I know something you don’t know” so brightly that Kara couldn’t resist giving him a firm swat on the arm.

“Why am I always the last to hear about these things?”

Lee shrugged as he went back to packing his belongings into the duffle bag. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s your bad timing?”

\---

“Up and at ‘em, Slayer.” Faith would have rolled onto her side and reached to pull her pillow over her head, but before she could get a good grip on it, Starbuck snatched the pillow away. Apparently being in charge put Kara in a good mood, and she’d been lording that power over Faith ever since she’d stepped foot back on_ Galactica_ less than fourteen hours ago.

(“These yours, Slayer?” were the first words out of her mouth when she strode up to Faith in the rec room. Starbuck held out the pair of regulation briefs with the initials FML written in permanent marker across the inside of the waist. She laughed. “Found them in the pilots' duty locker on _Pegasus_. Some of the guys had practically built a shrine.”)

Faith groaned as she rolled over onto her side. How could Starbuck look dead serious and yet obnoxiously cheerful at the same time? “What time is it?”

“Five minutes before reveille,” Kara said like she’d been planning to wake her up at 0555 since the night before. “Come on, get a move on, lieutenant.”

“I have five more minutes to sleep,” she growled, covering her head with her arms. “I’m takin’ ‘em.”

Kara leaned her elbows on the edge of Faith’s rack, enough pressure to jostle the mattress and direct the lieutenant’s half-asleep attention towards her. “I have a proposition for you.”

“Well,” Faith said dryly as she cracked one eye open, “if you wanted an early mornin’ frak, that’s all you had to say.” There was one lone snicker that could be heard; apparently their chat had woken up Hotdog who seemed to be getting a real kick out of it.

Kara rolled her eyes, tossing Faith’s covers aside. “C’mon, _cupcake_.” Slayer gave a reluctant groan but swung her legs over the side of her rack and slid to the floor, trailing Kara out into the corridor.

“You know about the SAR mission to Caprica.” Straight to business. Not a question, it didn’t need to be. Their great new CAG hadn’t given the actual briefing on the mission yet, but that’s what the rumor mill was for.

“Yeah,” Faith said, unable to shake the sleep out of her voice. “I also know it’s Two Alpha, and I ain’t plannin’ on volunteerin’. That what you woke me up to talk about?” She gave a quick shake of her head and turned to crawl back into her rack until Gaeta’s whiny voice gave the official wake up call, but before Faith could take a step, Kara grabbed her by the shoulder and turned her back around.

“And we’re back to why you got bumped off of flight status in the first place.”

“Cause I shot you?”

“Because you’re out for _yourself_, Faith.” Kara’s voice was firm and her nails on Faith’s shoulder were even firmer. “And frak anyone who gets in your way. I’ve got news for you. That’s over. No more of this you versus me, _Pegasus_ versus _Galactica_ crap. Here’s the deal. You come on the mission and show me you can actually be part of a team, part of _my_ team, then you’re back.”

A flicker of a smile tugged at Faith’s lips but quickly turned into a sardonic smirk. “I can’t just sleep with the CAG?”

“Get dressed.” Kara released her shoulder. “You got a head start on everyone else, so move your ass. I expect to see you in the ready room first.”

Faith shook out her shoulder, craning her head to see the little marks left by Starbucks’s nails on the bare skin. Running her hand over the marks, she caught Kara’s gaze. Her lips pursed together, trying to look like she was mulling over the offer when really she was still fighting the smile. Faith gave a terse nod before she could no longer fight her grin. “Sir, yes sir.”

\---

Of course with Faith’s luck she ended up stuck in the Raptor with Starbuck, the cylon frakker, and the cylon itself.

_She’s here to help us. She's gonna lay out our navigational markers and update our jump coordinates. Does anyone have a problem with that?_

Of course Faith’d had a problem with that, in theory. Now that she was sitting less than three feet away from it, watching as it drove a fiber optics cable into its own arm, she really, really had a problem with it. Not like she could actually say anything, had to play by Starbuck’s frakking rules now. She sat back, closing her eyes folding her arms over her chest, planning on trying to sleep out as much of the trip to Caprica as she could manage.

“I still can’t believe you talked me into this.” It sounded human, annoyed and sad; then again, Gina’d sounded human too.

“It's important. And I'll be with you there and back. It's you and me from now on, no matter what. Just like we agreed.”

“I know. I know. I really appreciate it, Helo, I really do. I just can't get her out of my head. Our little girl.”

Faith cracked one eye open, not wanting them to know she was now staring at them. Since her arrival on _Galactica_ she’d never really had any respect for Agathon, but getting to know him a bit more in the gym lately, she had to admit the man wasn’t an idiot. The cylon must’ve put up a pretty convincing act to get him to go all mushy like this. Then again, what human didn’t put up a good show to get whatever the frak they wanted too?

So Faith was gonna put on her own show. Keep her frakking mouth shut til they got to Caprica and she could get back in the cockpit.

\---  
“Hey. Rescue mission, remember,” Kara snapped. “Not a shoot first scenario.” Of course at the first sign of anything Slayer had raised her rifle to fire into the woods.

Ducking into the brush with the rest of the rescue crew, Faith rolled her eyes. “I kill… that’s what I do.”

“Right,” Kara said flatly. _Trigger-happy frakker_, she thought as she turned towards Helo. “Friendlies?”

“Only one way to find out,” he replied. He pushed back some dying foliage and called out across the clearing. “Got a Samuel T. Anders there?”

An uneasy silence filled the landscape, and Kara could see Faith gearing up to raise her weapon again. “Want me to take that thing away from you?” She snapped under her breath.

“You got a Kara Thrace there?” Another voice called over from behind the trees and bushes across the way, female and slightly familiar. It was followed quickly by an even more familiar male voice. “If there is, tell her she took long enough!”

Kara burst out into a grin. _Alive._ They were _alive_. She rose to her feet making her way out into the clearing as a few excited whoops were heard from both the crowds in the woods. “Yeah, well I’m here!” she shouted. “Quit your whining!” The rustle of leaves and snapping twigs picked up as her crew flooded out into the clearing to meet the members of the resistance who approached from the other side, Anders of course in the lead.

“That him?” She heard Faith whisper at her shoulder, before giving an appreciative mutter. “Not too bad.”

Kara shook her head, “You ever think about anything else?” She strode up to the resistance leader, a wide smile across her face. “Happy to see me?”

“You have no idea,” Anders replied, pulling her against his chest, his arms around her shoulders, and more gratitude in the embrace than she’d ever expected. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Slayer watching them with a mischievous glint in her eyes. Kara was sure she could feel the very beginnings of a pounding headache forming behind her eyes.

Back to business. She pulled out of his hold and looked up at him, ready to get the rest of the refugees and move out. “Where’s everyone else?”

Anders turned his head, surveying the crush of people filling the clearing. She could see his jaw clench slightly before he drew in a steeling breath. “This is it.” His gaze fell back on her. “Toasters hit the high school this morning.”

Kara stepped back to survey the survivors, easily distinguished from her own team in their black gear. Couldn’t have been twenty-five people, that was less than half. Less than half of the resistance remained and she’d missed it by a few hours. Her stomach clenched at the thought, but she pushed it away. Too frakking late now. “Right. We’ve got 17 Raptors waiting, we’re gonna get you out of-”

“We’ve got company!”

Kara barely registered Sharon’s call before the bullets started hailing down. A few missiles fell in the area sending out flames, shrapnel, and shockwaves. Frak if it didn’t look like hell itself was breaking loose. High ground. They needed to get the high ground or they were screwed and frak it if she was letting anyone else die today. Turning her head to her left she saw a rock formation towards the top of a hill, enough to provide sufficient cover. “Everyone, fall back!” She shouted over the rising commotion, and saw that Anders was already waving the others up towards the position she’d spotted. “_Move, move, move_!”

\---

“Can’t signal the Raptors; they jammed the freqs,” Helo shouted over the roar of another hail of gunfire. He dropped down beside Kara once they’d fallen behind the rock formation. She barely registered the words, she was too busy trying to make a decent head count, made all the more difficult by the scramble over limited medical supplies for the wounded; but despite the frenzy it looked like they had everyone.

The sound of gunfire dying down was what startled Kara back into reality. “What the frak…” She could hear the dull clank of toasters walking, but why the hell weren’t they firing? “They’re still out there,” she growled before turning her gaze towards Sharon. “Why the hell aren’t they firing?”

Sharon shifted uncomfortably under Starbuck’s gaze. “They don’t want us dead. If they did they would’ve done it already. They’re looking for prisoners, they’ll send for non-lethal weapons… gas,” she clarified. “Those they don’t take for interrogation will get sent to--”

“Hold up,” Kara cut her off, glancing around now that the crush of people had come to a relative standstill. “We’re missing… where’s Slayer?” She glanced around, but those who met her gaze only shook their heads.

“I could’ve sworn she was right behind us.” Helo’s face pulled into a frown. Kara’d been sure of it too. Slowly, she edged closer to a small opening in the rock face, allowing a view out into the clearing. Not thirty feet from them, she could see Slayer on the ground, propped up on one elbow. She was down but was drawing on all the strength she could. She watched as Slayer struggled to bring up her rifle firing off enough rounds to take out the two centurions that stood over her, before she finally fell limp against the ground.

“Frak.”

“Starbuck, where are you going?” Sharon’s hand caught her wrist as she moved for another opening.

Not bothering with an explanation, Kara shoved an automatic rifle into Sharon’s hands. “Cover me.” And without another word she was sprinting down the hill, skidding to a stop in the dirt beside Faith, and while she couldn’t quite make out what the damage was, her chest was rising. Alive. Good. The sound of clanking metal drew her attention and she fired off several rounds into the encroaching centurions. At the very least, it bought her enough time to get Faith’s arm around her shoulders and pull her to her feet.

Another hail of gunfire rained down on them, two explosions blocking them off from the high ground. If going back up the hill was out of the question, they were going to need cover and fast. Two more advancing toasters were taken out by a barrage of bullets from up the hill. At least they had someone at their back. A quick survey of the surrounding landscape revealed a small outcropping. It didn’t give nearly the same cover that the hill provided, but it was going to have to do. As she steadied Lehane’s body against her own, the lieutenant’s eyes flickered open for a moment, a groan escaping her lips. “Come on,” Kara said, heading for the outcropping. “You’re going to be a pain in my ass for a long time to come. No way I could ever be lucky enough to get rid of you.”

And Faith was out again.

\---

The first thing Faith was aware of was a sharp, throbbing pain that had settled in her left leg. The awareness of aches everywhere soon followed, but nothing quite compared to the pain in that limb. Darkness had settled in but when she did finally ease her eyes open, she could see her legs stretched out in front of her; she was propped up in a sitting position against what felt like rocks, and she could see a makeshift bandage wrapped around her leg. She leaned her head back against the rock trying to pick details out of the haze that filled her head, but there weren’t any. Just noise and pain and a flash of blonde hair. No… it couldn’t have been.

“I was wondering when you’d wake up.”

Maybe she hadn’t been dreaming it after all. Turning her head, she could see Kara just to her side, keeping their hiding place covered, her rifle pointed out towards wherever. “How long was I out?”

She watched as Starbuck scanned the landscape beyond the outcropping before pulling herself back to sit down next to her. Must have been either really confident that they would be alright, or just really tired of staring out there. “Not sure. Five hours, give or take.”

“What’s going on out there?”

“Right now?” Kara asked, craning her head for once last glance. “A lot of toasters standing around doing nothing. Can’t get back to the others with them standing guard, though.”

“Maybe it’s a new tactic,” Faith managed before a feeble cough escaped her. “Trying to bore us to death.”

A slight smirk settled on Kara’s lips. “Well, they get points for originality.” Faith watched as she scooted forward, trying to get a glimpse of the bandage in the dark. “How’s the leg feeling?”

“Hurts like hell,” she laughed. “But it’s a hell of a lot better than bein’ dead.” Kara gave a brief laugh in reply, but when she leaned back against the rock, a silence settled between them. Hell if it wasn’t for the distant clank of cylons not too far off, it could almost pass for a nice night under the stars. Almost peaceful. When Faith spoke again, her voice was low, almost like she didn’t want to ruin the night. “Hey, K.”

“Yeah?” she replied, her voice revealing her fatigue more than anything else in her body.

“You came back for me.” It wasn’t a question, and not really a statement either, more like she was trying to think out loud, trying to wrap her mind around the concept.

Kara didn’t look at her, didn’t do much of anything really. “I know what they do to women here,” she said. Faith could see Kara’s hand resting on her own hip. “I wasn’t going to let that happen. Not to you. Not to anyone.”

Faith groaned as she forced herself to her knees, reaching over to take the rifle that now rested at Kara’s side.

“What are you doing?”

“Sleep,” Faith said sharply. “I’ll keep watch.”

\---

When Kara opened her eyes, Faith was out again, propped against the outcropping fast asleep. She should’ve known better than to let the injured woman be the lookout, and she’d only meant to rest her eyes for a minute. On the other hand, daylight had settled in and they were still alive. She was counting that as a minor victory. She pulled herself to her knees to peer out into the clearing again and she could not have been prepared for what she saw.

Nothing.

There was nothing.

She nudged Faith’s shoulder and the lieutenant muttered something about pancakes as she finally came too. Kara pulled Faith’s arm around her shoulder and helped her out into the clearing, where the others were already starting to file in from down the hill, Helo and Anders leading the front, the former skidding to a stop as he reached the pair emerging from the woods.

Kara glanced around the abandoned clearing, almost afraid to say the words out loud. Like it would bring them back. “They’re just… gone.” Her brow furrowed. “It’s over.”

“Thank the gods!” A voice rang out. Kara turned to see a man she’d never seen before. Short, skin sagging with age, and wearing a ridiculous hat. Must’ve been one of Anders’. “It’s a miracle,” he continued. “Let us pray.”

 

\--End Chapter--


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "What is it you were saying earlier? 'Want, take, have'? Well, I want you. And nothing is going to change that."

“It figures,” Helo said, as he kicked at a small stone at his feet. “You go away for five days, and they find a planet.” The rock slid across the dirt and came to a stop against Kara’s boot.  

She tugged her BDU jacket tight around herself and was damned sure that if it was any colder she’d be able to see her breath. And this was the frakking _equator_. Dirt. Stubby grass. A river, grey with sediment. A couple of clunky mountains. Not a single tree as far as the eye could see. On top of it all, they had the nerve to call it _New Caprica_. They were giving up the search for Earth for this piece of shit? “Racetrack couldn’t have found a better one?” She said, kicking the rock back over to him.

“Well, it’s something. And now that Baltar’s in charge it looks like we’re staying.”

Kara scoffed and tugged her jacket tighter still, despite the fact that the cold breeze was abating. Anything remotely resembling settlement had yet to happen. There was still mounds of paperwork and planning before they could actually break ground, but already a few pathetic looking tents dotted the valley—civvies all of them, including some of the recently rescued Caprican resistance. Plus, people from _Galactica_ and _Pegasus_ were getting rounds of shore leave to come down and see humanity’s so-called “new home.”

Karl had told her he felt like a bus driver, with all the shuttle runs.  But it was better for him to be out flying around, Kara thought. Otherwise he’d be sitting around  _Galactica_ dwelling on the day they came back, the day they found out that the wrinkly guy on Caprica was actually a wrinkly cylon, and Sharon hadn’t said a word about it. Kara didn’t really know what to make of it all, but she knew Helo wanted the Old Man to trust Sharon, and whatever fragile bond might have been building was gone now.

With a light _oof_, she dropped herself down in a not-particularly-comfortable patch of grass, resting her elbows on her knees. Kara wasn’t planning on staying down there long or her ass would freeze. She turned her gaze towards the muddy riverbank where Kat and Hotdog were; they’d been part of the group to come down on this rotation as well and seemed to be getting a much bigger kick out of the planet than she was. She couldn’t make out what they were laughing about, but Helo muttered something about “at least someone’s having a good time,” as he settled down on the ground beside her, turning over in his hands his new friend—the rock.

She wasn’t sure what happened exactly, but for some reason Kat took off running down the riverbank, slipping twice in the thick muck. It was probably the only reason that Hotdog caught up to her. She squealed loudly when Brendan grabbed her about the waist and threw her over his shoulder. “_No no no no no!_” She was still laughing as she beat her hands against his back, legs kicking wildly in the air as he waded out, waist deep in the brackish water before dropping her. Kat plunged under the icy surface with a loud splash, then resurfaced once again, cursing loudly.

“Hey, come on!” Helo called over to the pair. He pointed to a small patch where the sunlight just barely broke through the clouds. “Go. Sit. Dry.” Kara even smiled a bit, amused despite herself; there was no way those two were going to be anything but a sloppy, soaking mess on the flight back to _Galactica_. Helo gave one last shake of his head as the two younger pilots grudgingly settled into the one sunny spot before turning towards Kara, the grin already fading from her face. “How’re you doing? Really?”

She shrugged. The only thoughts that really crept through as she stared out at this space rock was the fact that it was_ not Earth_. The past few days had been such a whirlwind—between returning from Caprica, the debacle that was being called an election, and the start of the fleet settling on this piece of space junk—she hadn’t really had time to think about, well, anything. “Well, pulled off the rescue mission, minimal deaths,” she paused thoughtfully, and didn’t even listen to the next words out of her mouth, “so I guess everything’s five by five.”

Helo didn’t bother to stifle his laugh. It was loud and long and Kara just groaned. He tossed the rock in the air and it came down between Kara’s knees. “Spending a little bit too much time with Slayer?”

“Gods, she’s infected me,” she said, picking up the rock and turning it over in her hands. “She’s like a virus.” She turned towards Karl who had raised an eyebrow at her and gave a resigned roll of her eyes and nodded.  “OK, I know. I’m exaggerating. A little.” Kara tossed the rock in the air and caught it. “She’s not _bad_. Just… kind of a pain in the ass. Only slightly crazier than most of the people from _Pegasus_.”

“Speaking of _Pegasus_, heard from their new commander lately?”

Kara froze for a second, then shook her head, reaching down to trace a circle in the grit with her forefinger. “He’s probably got his hands full.” Before she knew it, the circle had turned into two, three, then four concentric circles before she rubbed the drawing out with the palm of her hand. Helo nodded slowly before looking out at the tents in the distance and the people milling about.

She looked up as well, following his gaze and saw that he was staring at some of the members of the resistance who had set up a small encampment of their own, one Samuel T. Anders included. Apparently, he noticed the pair of them as well and nodded towards Kara with a smile before Jean tapped him on the shoulder, motioning for him to come over and help her with something by her tent.

“Sam moved down here pretty fast,” Helo said, failing at trying to sound casual.

“I think he does better on solid ground.”

“I’m surprised. I thought the two of you would be angling for more time together.” And he just had to go there. When she glared at him, he bounced his eyebrows. “The high school had very thin walls.”

“Right, because _that_ really meant something.” She jabbed him in the ribs with her elbow, smirking nonetheless. “Don’t _you _have some first-hand experience with me and one-night stands?”

“More than one, ’Buck.” His voice took on an overly offended tone. “Am I really that forgettable?”

Before she could answer there was another loud scream followed by a chorus of frantic splashing and Helo shook his head. “Are they five? Really? Are they? I feel like a frakking babysitter.”

“That any better than a bus driver?” she asked, quirking an eyebrow, but the smile faded away as she turned to take another look at the planet. _Humanity’s new home_. She looked up into the thick cloud cover that blotted out the sky and suddenly found it hard to breathe, like walls were closing in on her.

She’d begged the Old Man to let her go, continue the search while the fleet rested on New Caprica, but that was not an option. With President Baltar in charge—both of them would be in prison for treason before she got the chance; and part of her thought it’d be worth it, but the Admiral did not, just told her to be patient.

This was it. No more Earth. The rest of their frakking lives. Kara was never really sure of what she wanted in her life, but this was definitely not it.

\---

“Again?” Faith grinned a little bit when Kat pushed back the curtain surrounding her bed. “You’re gonna spoil me.”

She’d been holed up in sickbay ever since they’d gotten back from Caprica. Normally she’d have been fighting tooth and nail to get out, but the first day or so she was so delirious from fever and pain meds that she couldn’t even remember Kat coming down to see her. As soon as she was well enough to start riding Cottle’s ass to get out, Helo’d shown up to see how she was doing. He even brought her a deck of cards, played a few hands and left them with her so she could keep herself busy with solitaire. And he wasn’t the only one who’d stopped by. She’d never admit it, but she kinda loved the attention.

“I was in the neighborhood.” Kat hauled her right leg up onto the bed and tugged up the leg of her pants revealing a gash on her calf sealed shut with three stitches. “That’s what you get for screwing around,” she said with a roll of her eyes and a mocking tone. Apparently she’d gotten lectured for the aforementioned screwing around.

Slayer pushed back her blanket revealing her own sutured wound. Truth be told, the injury itself hadn’t been_ that _bad, more of a flesh wound than anything else. It was running out of antibiotics on the mission, which had led to the fun infection, accompanied by fever and weird frakking hallucinations of hopping pink bunnies. “I’m thinkin’ I win.”

Kat grinned as she swung around to sit on the edge of the bed. “I’ll let you have that one.”

“Damn straight,” she said with a cocky little tilt of her head that made Kat break out in a fit of giggles. She leaned back slightly, pressing against Faith’s wounded leg. Faith let out a sharp cry and Kat quickly scooted away.

“Oh my gods, I’m so sorry.”

Faith shook her head, gritting her teeth slightly. “Five by five. That’s what the morpha’s for.”

Kat frowned slightly. “You getting out of here any time soon?” Her voice sounded more than a little bit hopeful.

“Cottle says he’s gotta do more bloodwork or somethin’ but I should be clear to go in a couple of days. Seems more concerned with findin’ a cure for my big mouth than anythin’ else.” She leaned back against her pillow. “I missin’ anythin’ good?”

“Flying CAP’s boring as hell; there’s nothing out there to kill.” Kat said with a roll of her eyes. “They picked this frakking place because they cylons wouldn’t find us. So yeah… you could say I’m looking forward to some good company out there.” Faith looked down and realized that Kat’s hand was resting lightly on her knee. Kat followed her gaze and drew her hand back, quickly racking her brain for something to say. “You should get a frakking medal or something.”

It was Faith’s turn to laugh now— long and loud. “Yeah.” She could barely get enough breath. “Right. Big damn hero, that’s me.” Kat frowned, as the laughter changed in quality, lacking that ring of actual joy. “All I did was get shot at and pass out. Real special. Would’ve died out there if-”

“Starbuck hadn’t shown up and saved your ass?” A very familiar voice cut in. Faith looked up to see Kara standing where Kat had neglected to close the curtain. “Sounds like I’m interrupting something funny.”

“Not particularly,” Faith replied with a wink. “You beat me to the punchline.”

Kat pushed herself to her feet watching a look pass between them, she gave a slight shrug of her shoulders before excusing herself. Kara raised an eyebrow as she left. “What was _that_ about?” She shook her head and turned back to Faith. “Think fast.”

Kara withdrew something from behind her back and tossed it out into the air. Faith held out her palms, cupped together and the object landed in her hands with a soft thud. She turned the grey object over twice before raising an eyebrow in Kara’s direction. “It’s a rock.”

Kara grinned.

Faith pursed her lips and stared back at the stone. “Can’t wait to tell all my friends.”

“You have friends?” She pulled a chair up next to the bed and lowered herself heavily into it.

“So… New Caprica, huh?” Faith said, putting the rock aside. “Heard it’s handin’ out leg injuries just like the old one did.”

“Well, on the bright side,” Kara sank back in her seat. “it’s cold, grey, barely supports human life.”

“Quite a sales pitch you got there.” Faith said with a roll of her eyes.

“Yeah, Baltar’s already used it to sell himself as President.” A bitterness crept into her voice. “Looks like it worked.”

Faith picked up the rock once again turning it over in her hands once again. A little tiny chunk of a big chunk of space debris. On _Pegasus _they hadn’t been looking for this, just looking for the next place to strike, the next target to hit, the next cylon to kill. A frakking home for the rest of humanity, no one even dreamt about it. Even though she had yet to set foot on it, here was the physical proof of it in her hand. She glanced back over at Kara, deciding to change the subject. “So, I guess I should probably thank you or somethin’.”

Kara raised an eyebrow at her, but otherwise her face remained completely serious. “How much morpha does Cottle have you on?”

For a moment, Faith considered chucking the rock at her until she caught the glimmer of amusement in Kara’s eyes.

“Too late now,” she said with a shrug. “Missed your chance.”

She stood up. “I have to get going anyways. You…” Kara paused for a moment and gently placed a hand on Faith’s shoulder. “You just focus on getting better..”

“Because the sooner I’m on my feet the sooner you can boss me around, right?”

Kara gave her a wink and disappeared beyond the curtain.

\---

2045.

Kara checked the clock in the mess hall as she strode out into the corridor, trying to figure out how long it would take to work out the next week’s CAP rosters and if maybe, _maybe_, she might actually get more than four hours of sleep tonight. The worst part of being CAG was definitely the paperwork. As she ran through lists of names in her head, she rounded a corner and collided with another officer.

“_Hey!_ Watch where you’re—Lee?” Her voice, humiliatingly, squeaked on the name, but she quickly fought for composure, even as she looked up into his eyes and for no apparent reason wondered if they’d gotten bluer since the last time she saw him (_gods, that was a stupid thought_!) “What are you doing here?”

It looked like it was taking him a moment to recover from the impact, his hands braced on her arms. “I had a meeting with my dad.” She felt his grip tighten on her shoulders, as a smile crossed his face. “I’m glad you made it back alright.”

Kara felt her breath hitching in her chest, but she nodded with a smile, “Yeah, well, Caprica’s not really an ideal vacation destination anymore. It’s good to be back.”

His smile turned into a grin and then a laugh and he threw his arms around her shoulders and pulled her into a hug. Kara slipped her arms around his back, relaxing against his touch. She turned her head, burying her face against his neck and let out a sigh. Suddenly, she was struck by an intense yearning to talk to him, really talk to him. She wanted to say she’d missed him, she wanted to tell him she was sorry for way too many things than she could count—but before she opened her mouth, she opened her eyes—and came face to face with the red piping on Lee’s new uniform.

It was like looking at a line she could not cross. She felt foolish suddenly.  Didn’t know what the hell she’d been hoping for, what the frak she could possibly have thought they could have here. Maybe they could’ve been something, had something before, but not now. Guess Lee was right, she really did have awful timing.

“I have a Raptor waiting to take me back to _Pegasus_.” He said, pulling back. Maybe he looked remorseful, but she was probably imagining it. Before he disappeared down the corridor, he turned back to her. “I’ve missed you, Starbuck.”

“Missed you too, Apollo,” she said to herself as she watched him go.

\---

It was almost like it was on the checklist now; the very last post-flight item for Faith was to track down the CAG and work off the residual adrenaline and frak, she never got tired of it (and Kara never had to remind her to call her _sir _anymore).

Today, they frakked in the shower. When they were done, Faith snatched her bottle of shampoo and started working a lather through her hair. She flicked her gaze sideways noticing Kara leaning against the wall of the stall, looking more distracted than post-sex haze-y. “What’s up, K?” She asked.

“Huh?”

“You look out of it.” Faith stepped under the spray, rinsing her hair clean. “Is it that stupid Earth thing?”

Kara shifted against the wall and shrugged her shoulders.

“You gotta get over that. It ain’t happenin’ now.”

“Yeah,” she said under her breath. “I know.”

With a roll of her eyes, Faith snagged her by the wrist and drew her close. “Okay, this is not allowed.” Maybe round two would knock a little sense into her. Faith’s free hand cupped Kara’s breast, but Kara wrenched away from Faith’s grip.

“I’m not in the mood,” she growled, grabbing her towel and wrapping it around herself before walking out of the stall, slamming the door shut behind her. Faith stared at the door for a minute, then shrugged and pivoted, pushing her face back under the spray to catch the last of the hot water ration.

\---

Two months after finding the frakking planet, Baltar’s groundbreaking ceremony had people cheering and celebrating the start of a new life. But there were still some people there didn’t feel much like celebrating tonight and were just there to drown their sorrows at the open bar. Finding Kara drunk was not a surprise; Lee just wasn’t sure if she was drinking because of the former or the latter. But if he was betting, it’d be on the latter. Hell, Lee was halfway there himself and he’d never believed in the gods or the scriptures the way she did. Kara had believed in Earth long before they’d seen it. Together.

He supposed finding Slayer at her side, both of them sitting at the edge of the stage where people were still dancing, shouldn’t have been much of a surprise either. He wasn’t sure what it was that they were discussing, but whatever it was, Kara had the brightest grin on her face, too bright for a night like tonight. He wondered how many glasses she’d already had.

 “Hey, _Commander_.” Slayer called out when she spotted him, “Where the hell do you think you’re goin’?”

“Yeah,” Kara’s voice joined in. “Come on, Apollo; have a seat.”

Slayer was smirking as she gestured to stage with the hand that held a glass of booze. The liquid sloshed out and into Kara’s lap and the two of them burst out into another round of laughter.

Lee quirked an eyebrow and began to wonder if he should start searching for cylon copies. “Okay,” he said tentatively, leaning against the stage, “Who are you two and what did you do with Starbuck and Slayer?”

Kara took another swig from her glass and wiped the drops of alcohol that missed her mouth away with the back of her hand. “You know, she’s actually not half-bad when you get her in the sky. Not as good as she thinks but—”

Slayer pressed her hand against her own chest, jaw slack with mock offense, but there was a spark of amusement in her eyes. “Hey, I was kickin’ your ass up there.”

“Yeah,” Kara snorted, leaning forward, her elbows resting on her knees and her voice adopting a derisive tone that didn’t match her expression, “in a _training _exercise.”

Faith rocked backwards as she laughed. “You gotta take the exercises more seriously, sir. I mean, you’re the CAG, you’re the one who’s supposed to be tellin’ _me_ to take it seriously.”

“Yeah, well I tried, but if you weren’t so frakking concerned with showing off all the time—”

“Well, when you’re the best—”

“You’re the best? I’m sorry, what alternate world are you living in?”

“It’s called reality. Maybe you’d like to join me.”

“So.” Lee cleared his throat, re-announcing his presence. “Quite a party.”

Faith gave a single-shouldered shrug as she polished off the dregs of her drink. “Not really my scene.”

“And just what would be your kind of party, Slayer?” Lee asked with an arch of his eyebrow.

“Let me guess,” Kara said, giving Faith a studious once-over. “I bet it’s got… pulsing music… flashing lights… and an excuse to wear those leather pants you’ve got in your locker.”

Faith’s gaze narrowed, her voice dropping to a more sultry tone. “Don’t knock the leather pants.”

He shifted his weight awkwardly from foot to foot; perhaps this had been a bad idea.  Kara’s focus was clearly elsewhere. “Well… this has been…I really need to get—”

Before Lee could get around to actually excusing himself, Kat had stumbled her way over to the edge of the stage, putting her hand on Slayer’s shoulder. “Come dance with me,” she demanded with a smile and a tug on her arm.

Slayer pulled a face. “The music sucks.”

“I know.” She laughed and gave another yank at her arm. “C’mon, it’ll suck and it’ll be funny.”

Lee watched a look pass between Faith and Kara, a look he couldn’t read. Either they were eye-frakking or speaking in some kind of silent language he couldn’t decode, but either way it ended with Kara saying, “Knock yourself out,” and the two lieutenants disappearing out onto the dance floor.

“So…” Kara said turning back to him and he realized it was the first time they’d even looked at each other all evening. He hoped he wasn’t dreaming it but the glimmer hadn’t left her eye even after Slayer was gone. “You were saying?”

“Oh… well, I was going to… well, go, but—”

Kara pulled herself to her feet, standing barely inches from him as she rose. “Alright.” There was something in her voice that was smooth and sure and confident and just a little bit mischievous that he couldn’t turn her away when she asked, “Where to?”

\---

The music wasn’t _really_ conducive to grinding, but it didn’t seem to matter. Even though there was no rhythm to dance to, the hilarity of it and the astonished looks were enough to keep Faith and Kat going, that is until Kat saw something that made her stop dead in her tracks.

“Check it out.”  Kat was about to double with laughter. She turned so Faith could get an eyeful of the CAG and Pegasus’s Commander, walking off through the crowd. “Think they’re gonna finally do it?” She watched as Faith stared after them, until Starbuck and Apollo were no longer discernable and even slightly after.

Just as Kat was about to pull Faith back against her, she turned back with a roll of her eyes. “About frakkin’ time.”

\---

She had no idea what had possessed her to invite herself on this little nature walk with Lee, but as the sounds of the party died away and it was just the two of them alone in the wilderness at night, she started to think maybe this wasn’t such a stupid move after all. In fact she felt… something… …she felt…lighter, somehow. As if all the bullshit that had followed her from Caprica—no, gods, from before she’d left for Caprica _the first time_—had receded for the moment.  She couldn’t say why it felt different. It could’ve been the liquor, but she’d tried that before and she didn’t think so. Whatever this was, she was getting a kick out of listening to Lee going on about life on _The Beast_.

“Seriously? Nothing at all? No buckets of water rigged to fall when you open a door? Missing underwear?”

“Kara, I’m their Commanding Officer, not a substitute teacher.”

“Not even—”

“No.” Lee’s voice was a little firmer, trying to sound as authoritative as possible which (in combination with the alcohol buzzing in her veins and the fact that he was_ Lee_ and he was_ there_) just made her collapse into laughter again, and she stumbled over a rock as she tried to regain her composure and clutched his arm for balance. “So how are things on _Galactica_?”

She gave a long, pseudo-thoughtful sigh that was really more about getting her breathing back to normal again. “Boring,” she said bluntly. “Just kinda flying in circles at this point. People are starting to angle for honorable discharges to move down here.”

There were a few —_few_— nice things about this planet. The fresh air didn’t suck, even if it was cold and she could feel the ice in every inch of her lungs, and… well,  that was about all she could think of. So, when Lee asked if she was looking to muster out, she just rolled her eyes and asked, “Are you crazy?”

Lee stopped moving and turned slightly towards her. “Well, you said it yourself, Kara, there’s not much fight left.” Those blue eyes focused on her intently now.

She had to blink.“Yeah, well.” Her fingers dug into his jacket and she realized that even though she’d well found her feet again, she hadn’t let go of his arm. She swallowed hard. Maybe there was something worth fighting for still.“There’s more for me up there than down here.” She lifted her head and met his eyes.

Lee’s brow furrowed slightly and he turned his gaze towards the mountains in the distance. He moved forward again and Kara followed, frowning. She darted a glance at him, tried to read his face, but he kept his eyes trained on the ground as they walked further into the brush. “You… you and Slayer are getting along pretty well, then? I mean it looked like you two were… you looked happy.”

Kara stopped dead in her tracks and pulling Lee to a stop as well. “Yeah… that’s…” she wasn’t going to lie. “We’re alright. She definitely keeps things interesting.” As cold and dry as the air was around them, she suddenly felt it grow tense. Lee’s eyes sought hers even in the darkness with a question burning there. _Are you happy? _

She closed her eyes; it was almost funny how wrong he had it.. “You know… she’s… something but…” She opened her eyes and found that Lee was still staring at her. Her grip on his arm tightened. _But this is what made her happy_, the thought hit her and if she wasn’t holding onto him so tightly, it might’ve knocked her over. It was a stupid, little thought but there it was. Lee made her happy, and maybe he was out of her reach now, but with that thought fresh and clawing at her mind she had to at least give it a shot. Frak, it was the only shot she had left. “You know, she did give me one good piece of advice.” She could feel her breath already starting to catch in her throat. “_Want. Take. Have_.”

Kara slid her free arm around his shoulder without another moment of thought and drew him close, sealing her lips against his because that was what she wanted. Lee was frozen, completely responseless. For a moment she was scared, actually scared, that he was going to pull away, walk off into the night, but then his hands found his way to her hips, drawing her tight against his body, and she knew it was what he wanted too.

\---

“This is getting’ really lame,” Faith whispered in Kat’s ear, still dancing despite the fact that the party was winding to a serious close; the only people who remained were either shuffling to the ridiculous folk music or people passed out on the ground.

Barely had Kat prompted her with a “You got any better ideas?” than they had found a tent, not sure whose. Not that it mattered. Because what good was a party without a good lay?  Since her usual go-to for a good time was off and away having a good time of her own, and Kat had been dropping anvils since they’d met, why not?

Kat’s lips were eager and pleading against hers, as Faith unhooked her belt, unzipped her fly and shoved her pants and underwear down her thighs inone swift motion. She’d seen Kat in the sky before, and she was good. What she didn’t have in long-term experience, she had in pure drive, enthusiasm, and—gods, was she enthusiastic now—worshipping her like a hero. Not that Faith deserved it, but she wasn’t about to complain.

\---

He couldn’t count how many times he’d dreamed about it, about this. So many nights when all he could think about was _her_—the feel of her soft skin against his, the taste of her lips and tongue on his, the feeling of her, warm and tight around him. He wasn’t entirely sure this wasn’t just another dream, but if it was, it was the best one yet.

When she’d kissed him, it was like whiplash. Kara’s lips on his, insistent and demanding more. Now he was on his back in the New Caprican dirt and it was cold and he was pretty sure there were rocks digging into his back but it didn’t matter because she was there, riding him, drawing him deep inside her, and his hands were on her—brushing over her breasts, making her arch into his touch, skimming down her sides, one firmly holding her waist while the other slid between them. His fingers slid against her and with a few gentle strokes she broke around him, driving him over the edge as well, and all he could think as he came was how she looked so godsdamned beautiful in her ecstasy.

But as she lay sprawled half across him, no sound in the night but their breathing, the questions hit him. Why? Why them? Why now? Was this going to be drunken one-night stand or was this something she’d been wanting for as long as he had? When he told her he loved her on the _Astral Queen_, she’d told him he couldn’t take it back, and now that he had her in his arms like this, he felt like praying that she’d really meant it.

He felt her fingers trailing over his chest and it wasn’t long before he realized they were tracing the scar on his chest, the one she had put there, tangible proof that she had nearly killed him. Slowly he took his hand and placed it on top of hers, moving it away. “It’s alright,” he assured her.

She shook her head, her cheek brushing against his shoulder. Her tone was wry, but there was a hint of insecurity underneath it that maybe she was just too tired to fight under the surface. “Guess I really left my mark, huh?”

Lee gave a light laugh. “You left a mark on me the day I met you. This one is just really easy to see.” He rolled onto his side, facing her, holding her gaze. She was looking back at him, meeting his gaze with a hint of fear in her eyes. His voice shifted to a more serious tone. “Neither of us is going to live forever, Kara. So, shouldn’t we take the chance to be happy while we still can? What is it you were saying earlier? ‘Want, take, have’? Well, I want you. And nothing is going to change that.”  And as if they were some kind of magic words, she threw her arms around his neck, and pulled him down on top of her, lips fusing to his once more.

\---

“Where the hell is she?”

Slayer shrugged her shoulders from her perch on the Raptor’s wing, biting at one of her fingernails as she stared off into the distance. Party over. Time to head back to_ Galactica_.

Helo shook his head with a smile. “If she’s not back in ten minutes, I’m leaving her ass down here.”

“Yeah, well, I’m sure if Starbuck misses your little shuttle run, she can catch a flight back to Pegasus with Apollo.” Kat said with a shit-eating grin.

Helo raised an eyebrow towards them. “What are you talking about?”

“Starbuck and Apollo disappeared together around 0100, haven’t seen either of ‘em since.” Faith replied, and a grin was forming on Helo’s face that was more than just a little mischievous. Before he could respond though, Kara pushed her way through the crowd strolling towards them. She turned and cast one look back towards Lee who had gotten dragged into a conversation by an officer from Pegasus before turning towards them.

“Alright, let’s go home,” she said, standing tall, looking like a model soldier.

After Slayer and Kat had disappeared, Helo caught Kara by the shoulder. “Hey, Starbuck.”

“What?”

Helo treated her to a knowing look and a grin. “You’re glowing… oh and you might want to zip up your fly.”

 

\--End Chapter--


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Ever tried to clean a slate? You can always see what was on it before."

Lee pressed his lips against Kara’s neck, nipping lightly at the soft skin there. He trailed a hand down along her spine and grinned at the way she stretched, pressing against him, and let out a content sigh. “Think we have time for another round?” he asked before planting another kiss against her lips.

She slid her palms against his cheeks, deepening the kiss until he was dizzy from the lack of air before she pulled back. “Not now, I need to get back to _Galactica_. I’ve got a training exercise to run at 1430.”

He propped himself up on elbows, watching her crawl out from the tangle of sheets, and shimmy back into her briefs. “When am I going to see you again?”

“Gods, you’re needy,” she grinned, pulling her tanks over her head. And maybe he was, but he couldn’t get enough of her. Somehow they’d managed to keep this up for months—every once in a while one of them would find some excuse to find themselves aboard the other’s ship, find somewhere as private as possible, and continue to want, take, have. While they had the most privacy in his quarters on Pegasus, there were far more reasons for the Commander to find himself aboard _Galactica_, than for _Galactica_’s CAG to pay a visit to The Beast.

Lee shoved himself out of the bed and wrapped his arms around her waist, drawing her back against him. He pressed a kiss into her shoulder. “Can you blame me?” Even if he saw her a few times a week—in fact, their meetings were frequent enough that rumors were fervently circulating—it was getting to the point where it wasn’t enough. He’d been wanting to ask her for weeks but wasn’t sure how she’d react, but he figured now was as good a time as any. “We’re not fooling anyone anymore, Kara.”

“What are you getting at, Lee?” she asked, his name turning into a breathy little sigh as he traced a circle against her bare inner thigh.

“What I’m getting at—” He paused, this wasn’t the way he wanted to do this. He turned so he was facing her now with his hands on her shoulders, his grip firm but gentle. “—_Captain Thrace,_ is that I want you to be my… CAG. I want you here, on my ship; Maybe it’s selfish, but I _really _want the fleet’s best pilot running my air group and,” he raised one hand to her face, brushing his thumb over her cheek, “I want_ you_ here. I don’t think my father could say no to a transfer. I mean, look around, there’s barely anyone left up here now, half the fleet has mustered out, settled down on the planet and started making babies. I’m sure he would let me have you here.” He tucked a lock of hair, still sticky with sweat, behind her ear. “What do you say, Kara? Transfer over to _Pegasus_, and make me the happiest man alive?”

There was a flicker in her eyes that looked like hope and happiness, even as her lips curled into a little smirk. She let out a short laugh. “Could you make that sound any more like a proposal, _Commander_?”

He gave a modest shrug, fighting back a flush; he had gotten a little carried away. “I could get down on one knee, if you want.”

She didn’t say anything, just wrapped her arms around his neck and caught his lips with a scorching kiss, answering yes, yes, yes, _yes_.  “You know,” she murmured, leaning her head against his. “We might just end up killing each other.”

“Mmm.” He dropped a kiss along her jaw and pulled her tighter into his arms. “The make-up sex would be worth it.”

Kara gave a content little sigh at the touch, sliding her hands down his back. “Lee?” she muttered against his shoulder.

“Yeah?”

She squeezed his ass lightly. “I really do need to put my pants back on.”

\---

Faith blocked the quick cross-jab combo, easy as breathing, and stepped forward with a few blows of her own. Kat side-stepped one, ducked another, and the last finally caught her in the solar plexus. “Gotta do better than that,” Faith grinned.

Kat rocked up onto the balls of her feet; a bead of sweat rolled down the side of her face, lingering on her cheek for a moment before dropping to the gym mat. She drew in a deep breath and surged forward again with renewed enthusiasm. She delivered a quick strike to Faith’s shoulder and was going in for another punch when Faith caught her wrist, spun her around, and pulled Kat back against her.

“Surrender?”

“Never.”

Faith almost laughed when Kat’s elbow hit her in the ribs, forcing air from her lungs.   She drew in a gasping breath as Kat regrouped and swung another blow towards Faith’s head. Ducking and smirking, she snagged Kat by the waist and pulled her down to the mat and pinned her there. It was almost too easy.

“I win.”

“You cheated.”

“Sore loser.” Faith grinned and sealed her lips over Kat’s. Looked like she won that argument too.

Kat tapped anxiously at her shoulder, and Faith drew back. “Come on. Pre-flight briefing in twenty; I wanna grab a shower first.” Faith gave a shrug, stole one more quick kiss, and shoved herself to her feet, letting Kat up.

“Good match,” Faith said, with a tiny hint of bragging in her voice, tossing Kat a towel, watching as she dragged the fabric over her neck and shoulders.

“You too,” Kat said, rolling one shoulder, and cracking her neck.

Faith quirked an eyebrow at her. “You hurt?”

“I’ll live.” Kat slung the towel over one shoulder and smiled at Faith as the pair headed out into the corridor, which was—as always lately—empty.

“Gods, it’s so dead up here.” Faith groaned, not that this was any new observation, but just kind of getting to be a burden. “I still don’t get why the hell anyone’d move down to that piece of space junk.”

“Can you really blame them?” Kat asked. “I mean it’s a clean slate, a chance to start over, have a new life.”

Faith rolled her eyes. “Ever tried to clean a slate? You can always see what was on it before.” Suddenly Kat stopped in her tracks, studying Faith with a wary look that she’d never seen on her before. “What?”

Kat shook her head. “Nothing,” she said, continuing forward and pushing open the hatch to the head. “Guess you never really had a lot to run from.”

“I’ve done a lot of running. Just never actually got away.” Faith trailed her over towards the showers. “Why? You got a lot of experience cleaning slates?”

Kat gave a light shrug of her shoulders, simple, but it quirked Faith’s curiosity. “Maybe.” She pulled back the stall door to the shower and grinned. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got something else to clean.”

\---

“Nice digs,” Kara said, slumping down in a chair as Helo dug through the cabinet for the half-empty bottle of whiskey the former XO had left behind before finally moving down to New Caprica. Helo hadn’t touched it yet—good stuff, he’d been hoping to save it for the day that Sharon would finally be let out of the brig, a day that couldn’t come soon enough.

But this was a special occasion of different, more somber, nature. He tossed the sash to his dress greys aside before he pulled out the bottle. Examining the contents, he had the fleeting thought that it would not be enough. Nevertheless, Helo grabbed two glasses and set them on the desk, filling each one halfway.

Kara’s first drink was down in two swallows; he’d barely raised his glass to his lips. “Accidents happen.” He didn’t have to look at her to know she was rolling her eyes, he knew his words were of little consolation. “Sometimes we just can’t prevent it.”

As Kara reached for the bottle and poured herself a second drink, he amended his earlier thought—at least he wouldn’t have to cut her off before she regretted it in the morning. “You didn’t see her, Helo,” she said, tossing back her drink.

True, he hadn’t seen Faith right after the accident, but all of CIC had heard the comm chatter— the explosion, the frantic shouts, _It’s not my frakkin’ fault!_ But that was the last he’d heard.

“I saw her at services, she looked like she was holding together pretty well.”

Kara slammed her glass down on the table. “Pretty well?” she echoed, a bitterness in her voice. “Helo, she looked me straight in the eye and told me she didn’t care. She _killed_ Red. She freaked out a little bit at first, but by the time she hit the deck…” Kara just shook her head. “She just strolled out of her cockpit like she didn’t even notice.” Her voice trailed off, and she was apparently distracted by something absolutely fascinating on the wall behind him. “She blew a fellow pilot out of the frakking sky and she didn’t… oh wait, sorry, one of _Galactica_’s pilots right out of the sky.”

Helo shook his head; he hadn’t had the chance yet to talk with Slayer but it definitely sounded like one of her excuses. There was no way someone—even someone like Slayer with her ‘we’re all gonna die, why should we care’ posturing—could walk away from a friendly fire incident without remorse. “The first stage of grief is denial, but I don’t think Slayer’s really going to be dealing with this on her own. She’s probably going to need some professional help.”

“Yeah, good luck with that. Ask Lee how well that went when he suggested it; I’ll have an ice pack ready for you.”

“Well, then, we’ll just stick her back in the brig.” He poured himself second glass. “Have you tried talking to her?”

She eyed him skeptically. “I had her in my office right after the accident.”

“I meant, have you tried talking to her as a friend?”

Kara’s laugh held no amusement as she turned her gaze into her now-empty glass. “What makes you think she’s going to listen me?” 

“I don’t know,” he shrugged, “maybe because she reminds me a little bit of someone else I know.”  She rolled her eyes and started to protest, but he cut her off. “I just think you two have a lot in common, that’s all.”

Kara reached for the bottle, swirling the last bit of liquid around before she cast a challenging look at him. “Fine, I’ll talk to her tomorrow.” She brought the bottle to her lips and downed what was left of the whiskey.

Helo made a mental note to have a couple of ice packs ready. 

\---

Rolling onto her side, Kat opened her eyes to be greeted by the wall. As she stretched out, waking herself up, she felt a twinge in her shoulder and winced. The strain had gotten stiff over the course of the night and she rubbed at the pained muscle. Faith had definitely left some damage in her wake.

Kat rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling, as foggy memories from the night before flooded back. After the memorial service for Red, she’d wanted to keep Faith company since most everyone had been avoiding her since the accident. They’d played a few rounds of cards until Kat asked her how she was, and Faith just shrugged in response.

“You gotta feel something,” Kat had insisted.

“Not a damn thing.”

Kat had felt her blood start to boil at the words. She didn’t even remember what they yelled back and forth, but she remembered shouting, “They sure picked a hell of a callsign for you,” before storming out of the room, and spending the rest of the evening with the other pilots, her fellow pilots who actually gave a flying frak about losing one of their own. Kat stayed in the rec room and didn’t bother coming back to the bunkroom until she was sure Slayer was asleep.

She rolled onto her side, pulling her frantic tangle of hair out of her face. Pulling back the curtain, she slid down the ladder to the ground and noticed that Slayer wasn’t in her rack. She spent the walk to the head dreading the inevitable confrontation, but she wasn’t there either, neither was she at the mess. Curiosity aroused, she headed back to the bunk room and pulled open Slayer’s locker.

Inside, only a pair of dogtags remained.

\---

“Hey, Starbuck!”

She turned just in time to snatch the pyramid ball out of the air before it nailed her in the head. She turned to see the culprit—one Samuel T. Anders standing in the middle of the makeshift pyramid court he’d set up. The two of them had managed to stay friendly, and on the few occasions she found herself down on the planet she always managed to end up in a pickup game of pyramid. “Better luck next time, Sammy,” she said, grinning as he rolled his eyes. She turned the ball over in her hands and flashed a smirk. “I think I’m keeping this.” 

He shook his head and waved her over. “Come on, we need another player. Duck took off about ten minutes ago.”

Now it was Kara’s turn to shake her head, as she strode towards the makeshift court. “Not today.” 

“You owe me a rematch from last month,” he insisted, moving to knock the ball from her hands. She was faster, and ducked away, smiling triumphantly.

“Sorry, don’t have time. I’m here on personal business,” she said, but he didn’t seem to be taking no for an answer. She feinted right, and when he followed her she ducked left and hit him square in the stomach with the ball. “I’ll kick your ass next time, okay?”

“Excuses, excuses,” he said, shaking his head. “You know, I was surprised to see you down here. I didn’t think so many people were getting time off at once.”

Kara raised an eyebrow. “What are you talking about?”

“Your friend, Faith. She showed up here, early this morning said she had some time off and wanted a place to crash while she was planet side.”

Well, that certainly made her search a hell of a lot easier. “Do you know where she is?” Sam gestured back towards his tent. “Thanks. Catch you later.”

Kara shoved her hands into her pockets and strode off towards the tent, ignoring the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. It hadn’t taken much to convince the Old Man to give her some time off to find Faith, and he’d allowed Kara twenty-four hours leave to convince the deserter to come back.

“K,” Faith said, sounding completely unsurprised as Kara made her way into the tent. “What brings you around to these parts?”

“Fresh air and sunshine,” she replied flatly as she studied her. Maybe she would have believed the nonchalance if Faith hadn’t been standing with her arms folded over her chest, stance wide and defensive—more or less what Kara had expected to find. Kara took a step towards her and matched her stance. “You know, technically, going AWOL with intent to desert will get you stuck with confinement for six months and a dishonorable discharge.”

Faith didn’t back down. “Your point?”

“If you come back now, I think the admiral will go easy on you, but if you’re so frakking stupid that you can’t see a second chance when it bites you in the ass, I can guarantee the marines aren’t going to be nearly as nice about dragging you back to _Galactica_.”

Faith shrugged. “Well you can just turn yourself around and head back to your precious Bucket, because I’m not going anywhere, _sir_.”

“Look, I’m not here as CAG,” Kara said, easing off the offensive for a moment. She was practically stealing Lee’s tactics, but maybe if he’d gotten them to work on her, she might get them to work on Faith. “I’m here as your friend.”

Faith’s laugh must have tasted bitter. “Friend? Yeah. Right. That’s rich.”

The truth of the matter was that Faith was right. They’d never really been friends—enemies, yes; frak buddies, yes; comrades in arms, yes, but Kara couldn’t think of a single moment between them that actually resembled friendship. She started to think that maybe this little trip hadn’t been such a good idea after all. But at the same time, a part of her felt sick at the thought of leaving her to self-destruct—it’d certainly have made saving her ass on Caprica a waste of time. “You may be the biggest pain in my ass I’ve ever met, but I actually do give a flying frak about you.”

“Wow, thanks.” Faith rolled her eyes. “I feel all warm and fuzzy now. Thanks for dropping by, K.” She practically spat the last word; she locked her gaze on Kara’s but when she made it abundantly clear that she wasn’t moving, Faith started to leave.

As she brushed past, Kara caught her by the arm before. “You think that if you just up and leave, it’s going to make all the guilt just magically vanish?”

“What guilt?” Faith protested just a little too strongly. “I already told you, I don’t care.”

“Right. And you don’t care so much that you decided to abandon your post?” Kara dug her fingers into Faith’s arm, pressing against the tattoo that swirled over her bicep. “Nice try. Let’s hear another one.”

“Maybe I should take a lesson from your handbook.” Faith wrenched her arm out of Kara’s grip and tugged on her jacket; her voice was icy and her lips were curled into a sneer. “Got a bottle handy?” And she was gone, out of the tent, clearly trying to lose Kara in the crowded streets, but Kara managed to stay on her heels. People in the street were practically diving out of their path.

“You think you got _me_ figured out, Faith? Well, it goes both ways.” Faith’s paced quickened but she couldn’t get away. “You frakked up. You got someone killed and now…” Kara shook her head. “You’re like… you’re like a frakking cancer that needs to be removed.” Kara went stock still. The sound those words felt like a kick in the gut, and they were coming out of her own mouth, but she saw Faith’s shoulders tense and realized she was getting through to her. She was _actually_ getting through to her. Good. “And you’re not worth the oh-two you’re sucking down.”

Faith stopped in her tracks and hurled a fist at Kara’s face, sending her stumbling back into a bewildered vendor’s stall. Kara regained her balance and wiped away a bit of blood that was pooling at the corner of her lip. She curled her hand into a fist, ready to step in with a retaliating blow, but she vaguely remembered something she’d heard about the second stage of grief being anger. There was rage in Faith’s eyes—at least it was a start. “Well look at that, guess__ you _do_ feel something.”

“You know, you can just go frak yourself, K,” she hissed before disappearing into the crowd.

\---

“I hope you punched her back,” Lee said, rubbing at his temple as he listened to Kara’s voice as it came over the rather unreliable connection from New Caprica. He adjusted the receiver and cast a look around his mostly empty CIC.

There was a sigh on the other end of the line. “_She’s losing it, but I don’t think she’s a lost cause yet. I just think sending the marines in after her is going to do a lot more harm than good at this point.”_

Lee leaned against the table, staring up at the Dradis monitor and saw nothing but static-y read-outs. “We need to keep the military together and functioning, Kara. That means there are rules and if we start breaking the rules for her—”

_“Funny, I seem to remember you doing a lot of rule breaking the other night.” _

He could practically hear the smirk in her voice, and it made him smile.  It was incredibly stupid but she somehow managed to make him feel like a frakking school boy again, and he was thinking that maybe, just maybe, after the transfer to _Pegasus_, he might just try to make things official between them—besides, if they were married, they wouldn’t technically be breaking any rules. “Speaking of that, I talked to the Admiral and—”

“Commander?”

“Hold on a sec,” he muttered before covering the receiver’s mouthpiece. “Yes, Mr. Hoshi? What is it?”

“I’m not sure,” he replied, his voice was thoughtful but apprehensive. “Picking something up on dradis.”

“Dradis? How can you see anything in that soup?” But as he stared up at the screen, there were two very visible red markers that could only be cylon raiders that vanished almost as quickly as they’d appeared. Lee felt his heart drop into his stomach, and adrenaline race in his blood. And then the screen lit up with enemy contacts.

They’d been found.

_“Lee? What’s going on?”_

“It’s the Cylons.”

_“How many?”_

“Five basestars.”

The line went completely quiet for about five seconds before Kara spoke. “_Go._”

He was really hoping that he’d heard her wrong—that her real intention had gotten lost in the bad connection. “What? Kara, we can’t just—”

_“We’re not ready to face that kind of attack, Lee. I don’t know about your pilots, but if they’re as ill-prepared as mine… we’re not going to last ten minutes in dog fight. Go, jump, regroup—you have to.”_

There was no tremor in her voice, she sounded so sure of what had to happen, he only wished he had that kind of resolve. All he could think about was the last time he’d nearly lost her like this, and he knew she wouldn’t be flying back in a cylon raider this time. “What about you?”

_“I’ll do what I can here. But you have to go. The Old Man isn’t going to want to, but you’re going to have to convince him before it’s too late.” _

His eyes squeezed shut, trying to conjure up the image of her face—strong and sure and unafraid—one last time. No, it wasn’t the end; it couldn’t be. He swallowed hard, vowing to match her determination. “I’m coming back. As soon as we’re ready, I’m coming back.”

_“I know.”_

\---

It was like watching the world end all over again, and just like last time, there was nothing to do but fight. Cylon raiders flew low in the sky, the sound of their engines drowning out the murmurs of the crowds. Faith could feel the fear coming in waves off the people in the streets, but she felt no fear, nothing but rage boiling in her gut.

Good. Now she had something to fight. Now she had something to hate. It was probably the single most selfish thought in the world, but she didn’t give a flying frak. No one was going to be talking about one dead pilot anymore.

“What the hell is going on?” She heard Tyrol ask beside her.

She shook her head, “Not a clue,” her voice was almost a growl.

“What happened to—”

“The fleet?” Kara cut him off, pushing her way into the small circle that Faith finally noticed consisted of herself, Tyrol, Duck, Anders and a few others. Her face was set with unwavering resolve, but, for some reason, her eyes looked red and damp. “They’re gone. We’re on our own until they regroup.”

Tyrol shook his head, with a look on his face that said they were all well and truly frakked. “So, Captain,” he said, turning to face Kara. “What do you want to do now?”

“Same thing we always do,” she replied, voice firm. “Fight them until we can’t.”

Faith felt an energy charging through her, not just to fight for survival, fight for her_ fellow humans_, but because this was exactly what she needed—this is what she lived for. “I like the sound of that.”

  
\--End Chapter--


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That's what this whole thing is about isn't it? You think you can save me, it means you ain't half as frakked up as you think you are.

_Three... two... one..._

Faith's laughter was swallowed by the sound of the wireless tower going up in smoke and flames flickering in her dark eyes. She clapped an open palm against her shoulder, and mouthed, "C'mon K, let's amscray." No time to sit around and watch the fireworks.

The chaos from the explosion offered them enough cover to make their escape—smoke billowed high into the sky, blotting out the already dipping sun, a siren blared somewhere in the distance. The moment they hit the crowded marketplace, Faith tugged Kara into a mass of gawkers. Groups of people huddled together, loud murmurs and excited chatter ran through the crowd with all attention turned towards the site of the explosion. A general feeling of terror, confusion, and awe, had taken hold in the public square, so no one looked twice at the two women admiring their handiwork from a distance.

“Pretty picture, ain’t it?” Faith muttered, digging her hands into her pockets. The structure hadn’t fallen—though that was never part of the plan, but it would’ve made a nice touch, symbol of bringing the cylons down and all that—but the lights that normally flashed red near the top were dark and dead.

Kara folded her arms across her chest. “Not half bad.” Starbuck fancied herself the leader in their so-called resistance movement. Wasn’t much of a movement yet, getting bigger though, ever since the Cylon attack on the temple. Finally, they had enough manpower and firepower to make their first move, and it was unanimously decided that the best way to make their presence known was a strategic strike.

Certain members of the resistance, herself included, had urged for a slightly bloodier target than a comm tower, but there were few places that would keep human bloodshed to a minimum—Kara’s insistence. Either way, cutting off communications was causing a hell of a ruckus and Faith guessed that was the point of the entire thing.  

“Good work, LT,” Starbuck said, not bothering to look at her.  

If she had, Kara would’ve seen her glaring. She was getting really sick of this frakking babysitter act. Ever since Starbuck got marooned down here with the rest of them, she was all with her bullshit about knowing what it was like to frak up the way Faith had. Kept calling her _lieutenant, LT, Slayer_, like she hadn’t run off like the deserter she was.

Suddenly even the open market didn’t feel like there was enough air in it—hilarious, months ago she’d resigned herself to dying in recycled air, and now she can’t get enough of the real stuff. The thought of going back underground right now was enough to make her skin crawl. Next thing she knew, she was lost in the crowd.

\---

“…Toasters never even saw it coming.” Kara finished, wrapping up her tale. She leaned back in her seat, feet propped up against the wall. She may have embellished a few of the details, but it was a party, the resistance’s first successful mission. She’d earned a little bit of bragging rights.

“Well, they know we’re out here now,” Chief said considering the brew he was pouring, with a look on his face akin to pride.

Sam reached for a glass. “Good, that’s the way it should be.”

“So say we all,” Kara said, reaching for her own.

“So say we all,” the others echoed back.

The liquor felt like fire burning down her throat in the best way possible. It felt raw, reminding her that she was alive, she’d made it through the day and that pretty much qualified as a good one nowadays. Kara grinned as she slammed her glass back down on the table.

Out of the silence, Tigh spoke for the first time. “Where’s Lehane?”

Kara looked down into her glass. She remembered the look on Faith’s face flickering in the firelight, almost manic. She remembered standing in the crowd, Faith with her one second, gone the next. Kara swirled the dregs around in the bottom of the cup. “Frak if I know.”

"Godsdamnit!” he snapped. “You were supposed to keep your eye on her! That was the deal."

"She's a person not a frakking animal," Kara shot back.

"The mission was simple—blow up the tower, report back here. How did she manage to frak that up? You should've--"

"I should've what, _Colonel_?” she growled, pushing herself out of her seat. “Oh that's right, that’s not your title anymore is it? You’ve retired."

Everything about his composure darkened. "I didn't retire, the Old Man put me out to pasture."

"Look, we don't have time for you to sit around here feeling sorry for yourself pretending like we're still in the fleet, because _you_'re not.” Kara snapped, the entire room falling silent. She leveled a hard glare at Tigh before turning to Chief, Duck, Jammer, the former soldiers turned civilian. Celebrations were short-lived here anyways. “You _left_ and I don’t have the frakking time or patience for people who want it both ways. You wanted to take the easy way out, and look where it got you.”

"And what about you, Captain?” Tigh growled, stepping closer, voice thick with that self-amused sarcasm. “Want to explain to us just why you’re standing in the muck with us?”

Kara tilted her head up slightly, eyes narrowed as her glare met his. “The price I pay for trying to be nice.” She cast a brief glance at her watch. “It’s almost curfew, you all should get home. Don’t want to get caught out after dark tonight. Don’t give them an excuse to ask you questions. Dismissed.”

A few people at a time, the underground headquarters cleared out. Kara slumped back down into her chair rubbing furiously at her temples. What she really needed now was another drink. Being CAG was about all the responsibility she could handle, and this… this was beyond her. Part of her would be glad to let Tigh take over, but she didn’t exactly trust Tigh to be in charge of anything. She heard the horror stories of how he’d run the fleet when he was forced into a position of power—the frakker had been dumb enough to declare martial law, nearly split the entire fleet in two. No, this was too important for that. This was about keeping the humans alive long enough for the fleet to regroup and come back. They had to come back. They couldn’t just leave them here.

“Hey.” Anders’ voice startled Kara out of her thoughts. He lingered in the doorway, staring at her.

“What?” she asked, unable to fight back the edge in her voice.

“You going to be okay?” He raised an eyebrow. There wasn’t so much sympathy there, more like empathy. She knew he’d been there before, forced into a position of leadership he didn’t know how to handle.  

“Yeah, fine. Someone needs to stay here and watch the monitors.”

He took a few steps further into the room. “Curfew’s in five minutes.”

“Then you better get gone.”

“I was actually thinking about Faith.”

Kara felt her shoulders start to tense up before she shook her head. “She’ll come back. Always does.”

“So she does this a lot?”

She swiveled in her seat to look at him. “What are you getting at?”

“Faith. Disappearing at night. You didn’t seem too worried when she split after the mission.” He folded his arms over his chest.

Kara rose to her feet mirroring his position. “What exactly are you accusing her of?”

“Well, we already know she wasn’t exactly the most loyal person in the fleet.” He dropped his arms to his side, gesturing towards the door with one arm, as though to demonstrate how she just waltzed right out. “She’s a deserter and the reason you’re stuck here.”

“Wow, Sammy. You’re so grateful. She took a serious hit trying to get your people off of Caprica.” Kara wasn’t exactly sure it’d been some shining moment of self-sacrifice so much as an instance of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but she was not going to be on the losing side of this argument. “You really saying she would turn on us?”

“I’m saying that we should keep an eye on her. Right now, can’t be too careful who you trust.”

“She hates the toasters—trust that.” Kara resumed her seat, turning her attention to the monitors that kept searching for a signal from the fleet. So far no luck. Apparently, Anders didn’t get that meant the conversation was over and still he hovered. Without looking up, she snapped, “It’s getting late.” She heard him linger for another moment before she heard his footsteps retreat and fade.

\---

When Faith slipped quietly down the stairs into resistance headquarters she was greeted by a gun in the face. Her gaze flicked from the gun up into the face of its holder. “Nice to see you, too, K,” she said as she pushed past her and dropped into the first chair she reached. Faith felt a hot pain shoot through her side but didn’t react.

She watched as Kara holstered her gun, her gaze still trained on her. “Have a nice walk, Slayer?” Her voice was cold, bored, probably tired of being stuck down here too. Well, at least that was something they actually had in common.

“Just had a little extra energy to burn off,” she said, kicking her legs up onto another chair. She looked up to see Kara glare at her like she was some kind of bratty kid. “What? I wasn’t followed.”

“I hope you enjoyed it,” she said. “Because it’s not happening again.”

“You ain’t never had a problem with my little strolls before.” Faith glared up at Kara who was now standing over her.

“That was then, this is now.” Kara kicked Faith’s legs off the chair and took up that seat. “The cylons know there’s a resistance now, a resistance that can and will strike whenever they can. They’re going to be looking a hell of a lot harder for anyone who’s suspicious, and even sneezing the wrong way is going to look a lot more conspicuous to the cylons. You get caught out after curfew, you probably won’t be seen ever again.”

“You think I want the godsdamned toasters to catch me?” Faith hissed, thoroughly sick of this ghost story crap. She stood so quickly, the chair shot back and clattered as it hit the wall.

“I think you do,” Kara said evenly, slowly rising to her feet. She took a step forward, forcing Faith to take a step back. “In fact, I think that’s _why_ you’ve been taking these little walks.”

“First off, you’re nuts.” Faith jabbed a finger into Kara’s shoulder. A quick smack swatted the hand away. “Second, why do you give a flying frak? And third, you’re nuts.”  She shoved back against Kara’s shoulders, but found her wrists trapped by Starbuck’s hands. “Let _go_.”

Kara shoved her back against the wall, effectively trapping her there. “Thought you liked it rough, Slayer.”

“Frak _off!_”

“No. Alright, you are _my _responsibility, okay? You are—”

“_Not you_!” Faith snapped. A look of confusion passed over Kara’s face and quickly faded back into her hard stare once again. “That’s what this whole thing is about isn’t it? You think you can save me, it means you ain’t half as frakked up as you think you are. Or maybe you just like havin’ me around ‘cause it makes you remember there’s someone out there twice as frakked up as you.”  

Faith braced one leg on the wall and shoved back against her hard, pain once again flaring in her side, this time too strongly to fight against. She cried out, slumping back against the wall. Kara loosened her grip on her wrists and took a moment to actually look at her for the first time that evening. Faith was covered in dust and dirt, but so was Kara, fallout from the explosion. Looking down, Faith could see red seeping through her shirt.

Kara righted the fallen chair and gave Faith a firm nudge towards it. “Sit,” she said, using that frakking CAG voice she’d developed when she took Apollo’s job. Faith didn’t feel much up to following orders, but sitting down felt good so she did it. Kara disappeared from the main room for a moment before returning with the medkit and kneeling down next to the chair.

Her hands felt warm to the touch as she shoved Faith’s shirt up, exposing the bruised and bleeding skin to the stale air. “What the hell happened?”

Faith shrugged a shoulder, watching as Kara returned to the medkit, grabbing a bottle of antiseptic and squeezing the liquid onto a clean gauze pad. “It was dark. I tripped and fell, no big.”

“No big?” Kara echoed, pressing the gauze to the wound with a little too much pressure. Faith flinched. She looked down to see Kara smirking just a little bit. “Hold this.”

“Sadist,” Faith grumbled under her breath, the sting of the medication causing a slight burning sensation. She watched as Kara dug out some adhesive strips and taped the gauze down.

“Suck it up.” Kara sat back on her heels, looking her over. She grabbed Faith’s wrists, studying her arms—clean—and hands—bruised knuckles. “What other damage did you manage to do tonight?”

“What? Are you going to kiss it and make it better?”

Kara shoved herself to her feet. “You’re fine.”  She walked back over to the monitor, dropping down into her seat and seemed to be settling herself in for the night.

“Could’ve told you that myself,” Faith muttered, rising as well. She folded her arms across herself, remaining, however, glued to the spot. “You still watching that stupid thing?”

“Every day.” Every godsdamned day someone was watching the communications panel they’d ripped out of a grounded raptor. Every frakking day, there was Starbuck, staring at it like they were actually going to get some signal. Like they were actually going to get rescued. “Adama’s coming back for us.”

Faith scoffed. “Which one?” She could see Kara’s shoulders tensing. Normally she would’ve been pleased. Sometimes their little game of who could get under whose skin worse was the highlight of her day, but for some reason tonight she just wasn’t feeling it. “You really think they’re coming for us? How do you know they’re not just gonna take what they have and split?”

“I don’t know. But I believe it. I believe they’re coming back.”

Faith slowly crossed the room, pulling up a chair alongside Kara’s and sitting down next to her. “You believe in a lot of things don’t you?” She cast a sideways glance to see Kara looking back at her with a raised eyebrow. “ ‘til the temple got blown you went there every day. Now I’m no genius but I don’t think that people end up holed up in temples to sit around eating cookies. After all the crap you’ve been through, you still pray. I just don’t get it.”

Kara shifted in her seat, turning to look at her. “You’re telling me you don’t have faith in anything?” Faith opened her mouth, about to say something about how she really walked into that one when she got cut off. “And don’t say ‘just myself’ because I know for a fact you don’t have that.”

Faith sank down a little bit more, propping her feet up on the console, somewhere where she wouldn’t be hitting any buttons. “I dunno.” She let out a deep breath, bringing one hand up to scratch the back of her head. It wasn’t like she was a particularly sharing kind of person, not with Kara, not with anyone, but the question prompted a memory, stupid thing from when she was a kid. “I mean… when I was little… my mom was a drunk, landed herself in jail a couple of times, and I got bounced around from one foster home to another. I had this… imaginary friend.” Faith felt a furious blush rising in her cheeks as Kara let out a laugh. “Yeah… her name was Alex and she was the one person who stuck around in my life. When I got to be ten, she sort of went away, you know, you outgrow that shit. But then…” Oh gods, even the next words in her head sounded insane.

“Right before I took my post on _Pegasus_, I was supposed to be stationed on _Triton_. I met Admiral Cain some big to-do, I don’t remember, but I was part of the ceremonial fly-by, and she came up to me, said she wanted me on her ship and if I wanted she could pull some strings. It seemed like no big deal, but later on… Alex showed up… convinced me to go to _Pegasus_. I was pretty sure I was losing my mind but I did it. Ended up servin’ under Cain and… well I guess if I hadn’t done that I’d be dead right now. Back when the attacks happened, it sorta felt like there was someone watchin’ out for me.” Faith shook her head. “A-aand I sound like a total nutcase right now. Y’know, I think I’m just going to get some shut eye before I start seeing the image of Zeus in a piece of bread or something.”

Faith shoved herself to her feet, shuffling towards the door. The cots they kept down there were probably less comfortable than the stone floor but a little bit warmer, so they’d have to do. As she reached the door, she glanced back to see Kara messing with the channels, searching for something, anything. Faith almost pitied her. “Hey, K.”

“Yeah?” She didn’t look up.

“Uh… thanks.”

That got her attention. She glanced over her shoulder with a raised eyebrow. “For what?”

“Y’know. Listening to me be crazy. Patching me up.” She gave a single-shouldered shrug. “Thanks.”

Kara turned back to her work. “You’re still not going out for anymore post-curfew walks..” Faith rolled her eyes before disappearing into the sleeping area.

\---

Kara woke the next morning with a twinge in her back and a hand tapping at her shoulder. Someone was murmuring words she couldn’t pick out. She slowly rolled up into a sitting position, her spine protesting the entire way. She blinked, clearing her eyes. She had no idea how long she’d been out but it probably wasn’t too terribly long. She’d been up for hours trying to get through to the raptor that was out there, that _was_ out there.

“Starbuck, you okay?”

She blinked hard once more, shaking her head before she could finally focus on Jammer’s face just inches from hers. “Yeah, fine,” she said, shifting her back trying to work out the kinks. As her brain started to kick in she started to take note of a dark mark underneath his eye. “What happened to you?”

“Huh? Oh that…” He raised his hand brushing it over the bruise. “I, uh, took a spill on the pyramid court, a couple of the guys were playing an early morning game.”

Did anyone play this early in the morning? She shrugged. “Well I’m heading out for a little while, I need to get some supplies at the market; hold down the fort?”

“Will do, Sir.” He snapped off a salute and Kara couldn’t help but grin a bit.

She snagged her jacket from the back of her chair and headed out into the grey New Caprica morning running through her checklist in her head as she headed towards the marketplace. She tugged her jacket more tightly around herself against the cold. It never stopped being so frakking cold.

She cast a glance towards the shabby little pyramid court as she passed by it on the way to town. It certainly didn’t look like anyone had been playing on it this morning. She made a mental note of that and continued on into the crowded marketplace.

\---

K wasn’t back by curfew, and Faith almost laughed to herself. It was hilarious in a really stupid way after her long lecture about not getting caught. She wasn’t back by morning either. Last person who could even remember seeing her was Chief who’d passed her in the market a few hours before noon. Faith spent the day lingering outside the school like she was waiting, sucking down cigarettes despite the ex-president’s requests that she take her nicotine addiction away from the children.

Another day came and went and still no word. Sam and the Chief took over operations, went through the motions of picking new targets, planning new attacks; they talked about trying to get their leader back, but when Tigh pointed out there was no way to get into the detention center, it stayed talk.

People were starting to disappear on New Caprica; most thought anyone still sporting a pair of dogtags was a likely candidate for vanishing.

Three weeks after that, Tigh disappeared. A month after that he reappeared; well most of him anyway. Faith almost thought the grizzled, vengeance-craved thing looked good on him, you know, for an old guy. He came back. K didn’t.

Tigh came back, and the targets shifted. Within a week, he’d sent Duck off to blow himself up at the New Caprica Police graduation, just for the chance to get Baltar. Of course, the president wasn’t there. Security reasons.

The night after the suicide bombing would probably be the worst to be roaming the streets. Faith snagged her jacket, pulled the dark fabric around herself and slipped off into the night. Frak it all. If the toasters caught her now… well, they were all going down some day. She felt the weight of a pistol in her pocket.

She never used to carry one on New Caprica. Before, when she made her rounds, her patrols, it was just her and her fists. If she found one of the so called cops—frakking collaborators made her sick—it was a hell of a lot more fun to grab them by shoulders, snap their neck, leave ’em for dead. She’d slipped up once, wasn’t even sure she got away clean—that was the last night she’d seen Kara before...

Ever since then, she figured a silenced gun would get the job done just as well. Better actually. Less guesswork. She figured the pistol gave her an unfair advantage. She figured she deserved it.

It was easy to hide from the toasters at night, you could hear ’em coming a mile away. Same with the jeeps. You hear footsteps, normal footsteps, it was either a human or a skin job. Either way they got a bullet in the head. So when Faith heard the tread of boots as she made her way through the empty marketplace, she knew exactly what to do. She ducked into a stall, empty of its wares, waiting for the owner to show up again when the sun rose and the humans were allowed to roam the streets again.

She pulled back the tarp just enough to peer out into the street. The footsteps were gone now but she wouldn’t exactly count that as a good thing. She raised her gun, daring to make her way out into the open once again. A cursory glance showed no one in sight. She slowly edged her way towards the opening between her hiding place and the next stall over. A shadow moved in the alleyway. She didn’t have time to aim before a voice growled out from the darkness. “Put the frakking gun down, Lehane.”

The walk back to the base felt a hell of a lot longer with Tigh on her ass the whole way back. Had to dodge a couple of patrols of centurions on the way, but eventually they found their way back without getting detected. Faith dropped into a chair as the former XO inspected the handgun she’d snagged from their cache. She didn’t figure anyone’d miss it. They were mostly fussing over the assault weapons.

“So that’s what you’ve been up to at night?” He almost sounded amused as he studied it. “Vigilante work?”

“Might not be the mass destruction of a bomb, but it gets the job done.” After a moment of thought she added,  “Sir.”

“I like the initiative,” he said, pressing the gun back into her hands. “But I think your talents can be put to better use, if you want to.” Faith reclined a bit in her seat as she stared up at him. “We’re getting close to getting off this rock. Got the freqs that the cylons haven’t scrambled, finally got in touch with the raptor.”

“Frak me,” Faith breathed, fleetingly thought K wasn't here to hear the news she’d wanted so badly. “They really were tryin’ to come get us?”

“They really were, but that’s besides the point, Lieutenant. I needed you to know that there may actually be a way off this godsforsaken rock before I ask you my next question, understand?” She nodded. “President Baltar. Slimy son of a bitch got us into this mess and is going to get away with it to. Even before the cylons showed up this planet was hell in a handbasket. So far no one’s been able to get him.”

She could practically feel the pieces clicking into place. And she liked where this was going. “And you want to know if I’ll take a shot.”

“Aren’t many stupid enough to try. Then again, aren’t many stupid enough to be wandering the streets shooting the cops at night. It’s almost definitely a one-way trip but—”

“I’ll do it.” Faith ran her fingers along the barrel of the gun. What the hell. They’d all get what was coming to them in the end. And this actually seemed like a lot more fun than strapping on a bomb. "Murder is my middle name."


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And yet, somehow, despite everything, she was still standing.

_Ten Months later…_

"Major Adama?"

Lee turned to see Dee walking up alongside him; there was a piece of paper in her hand and he got the feeling he knew exactly what this was about. "Let me guess, Caroline Davies?" he asked, taking the paper from him.

"Fifth message in two weeks," she replied.

Lee rubbed at his temple. _Frak_. He didn't have time to deal with this right now, didn't have time to deal with some mystery person from the _Pyxis_ who kept trying to get in touch with him. What he had to deal with was the fact that someone kept trying to blow up Baltar's lawyers and, with the trial two weeks away, he didn't have much time for anything else. "You know what?" He folded the paper in half. "I'll meet with her. She can say whatever the frak it is she wants to say and then she'll leave me alone."

"Good." She pointed to the folded paper in her hands. "Because that says she's coming on a civilian transport to _Galactica_ today."

Lee shook his head. "Alright, I'll meet her at the hangar deck. I just need a few minutes."

Dee gave him a solemn nod and headed back towards CIC, leaving Lee to continue to his intended destination. He walked along the corridor, making a few more turns, before he finally came to a stop. He sucked in a deep breath as he walked past the rows of photographs until he came to the spot where he'd stood so many times before, and pulled the photograph out of his pocket.

Lee looked up at the spot on the wall where a photograph of Kat was pinned just to the left of where Slayer's dogtags hung. This was the spot, Kara'd told him once. This was where she wanted to be. He'd tried to put the photograph up before, but he simply seemed to lack the willpower to put the picture on the wall, leave her there as one photograph among thousands, and walk away.

Putting it up meant he no could no longer put it off, push it to the back of his mind, and he'd finally have to come to terms with the fact that she was gone—Kara was gone—and he hadn't been able to do a damned thing about it.

The first days after the exodus had been bad. Even after they'd moved back into the bunkroom (following Lee's reinstatement as CAG), he could still hear her across the room—tossing, turning, whimpering in her sleep, waking in starts, and disappearing out into the corridor. One night, he'd followed her. When he caught up to her, she'd spun around, striking him hard in the jaw. Her eyes had been wide, panicked, and she'd just shaken out her hand, asked him what the hell he was doing following her like that. He'd asked her about the nightmares and she'd told him to stop watching her while she slept because it was frakking creepy.

He didn't mention it again, but he still watched and listened. Lee thought after a while the dreams had stopped; but maybe she'd just gotten better at hiding them. The days seemed to be better. She'd resumed flying CAP but there was no chatter, no flashy hot-shot tricks anymore. She stepped up as flight instructor again, but she was harder on the nuggets, yelled more than she used to (which had always been a considerable amount), but Lee didn't question her methods. On occasion, he'd find her in the gym, beating the punching bag until her knuckles bled. He'd foolishly chalked that up to the stress they were all under—mood swings, outbursts, he assumed it was nothing more than what they were all feeling, heightened with Starbuck's usual hot-blooded nature.

Lee had known bits of what had happened to her planetside from debriefings—she'd worked for the resistance and about two months into the occupation she'd been taken from the marketplace and held prisoner for another two months. That was all he knew. Sometimes, when they'd been alone together in his office, he'd ask her what happened, but she never gave him more than that. He'd pushed her for a little while, but she pushed right back. Eventually he'd stopped asking, favoring being with her to arguing with her in the limited free time they could snatch.

Hindsight was a real bitch. Now, he realized that was the biggest mistake of all. Maybe if he'd just pushed her a little more, made her open up to him, even been a superior asshole and ordered her to see a shrink, she could've gotten some help.

Maybe she wouldn't have ignored his hails and flown into that frakking storm,

Maybe she wouldn't have left him.

He stared down at the photograph in his hand; Kara's face was completely lit up with laughter and a smile that went all the way to her eyes. She looked happy in a way he hadn't seen her in months, happy in a way he'd never see her again. Lee felt his stomach churn at the thought. It was a selfish one. He wanted to believe she could be happy wherever she was now but Lee had never believed in the Gods. Kara had said she'd see him on the other side. He hadn't had time to tell her that he didn't think there was one. He hadn't had time to tell her anything important. Lee shut his eyes tight, holding the picture to his chest.

"So are you gonna stand there all day or are you gonna put it up?" A voice, an all-too-familiar drawl, jolted Lee out of his thoughts. He turned to see a dead woman staring at him from a few feet away. She wore tattered-looking civilian clothing, and her hair was stringy and unwashed under a cap pulled low. But when she raised her head, Faith Lehane's face stared at him, looking exactly the way Lee remembered. He felt his jaw go slack.

"I was wondering when you were gonna start answering my messages, but finally I figured it'd just be easier if I came over myself." She stepped forward, surveying the wall. Her eyes fell onto the photograph of Louanne Katraine and she frowned. "Kat too?" There was a little break in her voice. "Gods, can't believe I didn't hear about that."

He stared hard, the pieces finally clicking into place. "Caroline Davies?"

"Good looking _and_ smart. You haven't changed, Apollo."

"You have," he frowned. "Considering the fact that you were declared dead."

"Assumptions make you an ass outta me… or something like that." She laughed. He didn't. Her smile dropped and she gave a nod of her head down the corridor, tugging her cap down once again. "Look, I'll explain, okay? Got some place we can talk? You know, private? Had a hell of a time sneaking around the marines, tryin' not to get recognized."

He looked her up and down. There were supposed to be twelve cylon models and only seven were known; it was enough to give anyone pause. "Give me one good reason I shouldn't shove you out an airlock right now," he said, voice low and cold, and Faith's eyes narrowed at the obvious implications. "You said yourself, you didn't want anyone recognizing you."

"'Cause I'm a frakking deserter, Apollo!" she snapped. "If I was a cylon I wouldn't've bothered going through the trouble of announcing my presence. You think I'd be _here_ if I was a cylon?"

"Then why the hell are you here, Lehane?" he asked, folding his arms over his chest.

"Look, I heard about K, alright? Someone like Starbuck dies, the entire frakking fleet hears about it." She shoved her hands into her pocket. "I just… figured it sucks for me, and it probably sucks worse for you, 'cause you and K were…a thing and… frak, maybe this was a stupid idea."

Lee watched the way her shoulders slumped. That was something he didn't recognize from before—Slayer had been all swagger and talking big and showing off with a bravado to rival Starbuck's, and now here she was looking about as lost as he felt. He shook his head, pocketing the photo again. "Follow me."

\---

"Huh. See you got demoted," Faith said, striding into the CAG's office. "What did you frak up?" Faith remembered the only time she and Apollo were alone here. Ten minutes of him screaming at her for nicking Starbuck's bird with friendly fire is kind of a sick memory now. She looks back, watching him close the hatch behind them.

No sooner had the hatch clicked shut, than he started with the questions. "Alright, you said you had explanations. Start explaining."

Faith spread her arms wide open. "Where do you want me to start?"

His arms folded over his chest again, leveling a hard look at her. "Let's start with how you're here. Last I heard, Tigh sent you off on a suicide mission."

Heaving a sigh, she plopped down, taking a seat on his desk. Faith pulled off her cap and raked a hand through her hair, fingers getting caught in a couple of knots along the way. "Okay, right." Her gaze fixed on the floor. "So, Tigh found out that I was… doin' vigilante work, killing New Cap cops at night." She glanced up at Lee, but his expression hadn't changed. She suddenly felt wave of guilt wash through her, imagining Kara looking at her with the same wary disapproval. "Guess he was pretty pissed about losin' his eye or something and he wanted to take it out on the prez."

"I got that part. Skip ahead to _how you lived_."

"Right…so, I got there, missed the shot—missed twelve shots…and bam, outta nowhere, one of the cylons took me out at the knees and the other was sayin' all this shit about having me taken to the basestar because I'd be useful." Lee's gaze had softened somewhat, but she just stared past him at the wall. "I figured, that I had that comin' to me… like my own personal hell, only worse because I wasn't actually dead." She let out a bitter laugh. "Whatever they were gonna do to me, I deserved it 'cause I was a homicidal psycho."

"So the cylons kept you prisoner?" He pushed past her, circling to the other side of the desk and digging through a drawer.

She shook her head, her mouth a grim line."They were gonna. They were dragging me off when _bam_, outta nowhere I hear gunshots, and the two skinjobs that were carrying me off just dropped. I didn't see who did it, I just started running and didn't stop. I—"

"Gaeta," Lee said, looking down at a folder he'd dug up. "When we were… looking into your disappearance, Gaeta came forward as the last one who saw you alive. He says he saw you being dragged off, shot the cylons, then went to…confront the president. But no one else could confirm your whereabouts after that. It was assumed you were left behind."

Faith raised an eyebrow and fought back a laugh. "Gaeta? Gaeta saved me? Didn't know he had it in him… 'specially after I pistolwhipped him."

"You missed some excitement. A few weeks ago he stabbed Baltar in the neck with a pen."

"Huh." She gave a little nod of appreciation. "Good for him."

Lee pulled out a chair, sitting down and looking up at her. "Slippery weasel lived though."

She laughed. "I swear that guy's like a cat or something, but he's gotta be runnin' out of lives soon."

That got a chuckle out of Lee as well; he looked down at the file and then back at her. "Your story checks out. But… where were you? Kara… she didn't want to stop looking but when the census was done…" The tiny smile she'd gotten out of him was gone, his voice dropping as he continued. "…she didn't take it well."

"Well like I said, I started runnin' and I ended up in a crush of people getting herded onto the ships to get the frak out of there. I ended up on the _Pyxis_, took the name of someone in the resistance who'd died and lucked out that nobody there knew her." Faith pushed herself to her feet, looking down at Lee. "Got any more questions or is the interrogation portion of this reunion over?"

Lee got up again, rummaging through another part of his desk. When he stood again, he had a bottle of ambrosia and two glasses. "Just one more," he said, filling each glass half way with alcohol, and setting them down on the desk. "Tell me about the resistance… about Kara, what happened to her down there."

"She didn't tell you?" Faith said, taking one of the glasses.

"You know how much she loved to share," he said.

She tipped her head back, emptying the glass of it's liquid in one long swallow. "Where to start… she was the brains of it all. Really was the one to get things going, all fight 'em 'til we can't and all that." Faith remembered how it felt at the time, the desire to fight purely for the sake of bloodshed, wanting to feel necks snapping beneath her hands. She wanted to kill, 'cause she had nothing else.

"K didn't know about my… extracurriculars She woulda shut me down right away. Kept acting like my frakking babysitter most of the time, like I couldn't take care of myself or something. After the first bombing we pulled off… gave me a big lecture about how bein' out after curfew was gonna get you killed…" she shook her head, a parody of a grin bitterly twisted her lips, "and then the next morning the skinjobs got her in broad daylight. After a while," she lowered her head, swallowed hard, "people just figured she was dead."

Lee was looking at her like he was expecting more, expecting answers, but Faith didn't have anything else to give him and shrugged. He stared down into his glass.

Unsure of what else to do, Faith reached for the bottle, filling her glass again. "To K, one hell of a fighter." She looked down into her glass. The words weren't enough; Kara didn't just fight the cylons, she fought _for_ the people she cared about. She'd fought for Faith, never gave up on her, even when she'd given up on herself. "And one hell of a friend." She reached out, tapped the edge of her glass to his and they both tossed their drinks back.

Faith grinned a bit as Lee took the bottle from her and poured another round. "To Kara," he said, raising his glass. He looked like it hurt too much to think too hard. He sounded so blank when he said, "There'll never be anyone like her again."

"I'll drink to that," she replied, downing her shot. Almost gleeful this time, as she started to feel the warm buzz of booze in her blood, she poured yet another. "Here's to K, who'd be really frakking pissed that we're drinking without her."

It went back and forth like that for a little while, emptying the bottle shot by shot with stories and toasts until Lee choked a bit downing a shot. "Okay, I think that's enough." He coughed, wiping a drop of ambrosia that dribble down his chin and set his glass aside.

Faith glanced at the bottle, which still had a few drinks worth left in it. "Come on, we gotta finish what we started here." She swirled the contents around for show before pouring two more drinks and shoving the glass back into his hand. "Your turn, let's hear another one."

He heaved a sigh. "Alright."

"And make it a good one this time."

Lee glared at her and cleared his throat, holding up his glass. "To Kara," he started. He cleared his throat again. He sucked in a breath and shook his head. "Kara…"

Faith watched the glass slip from his hand, shattering against the metal. His hands were shaking violently, and it didn't sound like he was breathing too good. _Frak_. She set her glass down on the desk just in time to catch Lee before he fell to the floor. "Too much too fast, huh?"

He muttered something so soft and so strangled that she couldn't make out what he said. "You're gonna have to speak up, Apollo." Faith hooked her arm around his shoulders and helped him over to the couch—had to keep from falling on the broken glass and cutting the shit out of himself. He landed heavily on the cushions.

He shook his head, a short sobbing sound slipping out as he said, "She's gone. She's really gone."

Faith frowned. _Frak_. Comfort wasn't exactly her thing. She was in way over her head here. "Yeah, she is." The words struck something in her. Faith had never been one to get sentimental about death. Hell, they hadn't called her slayer for nothing. You did your time and when it was up…well, that was it. But she'd never had anyone like Kara die on her. Starbuck was the only person who'd never given up on Faith. Frak, she'd even got herself stuck on New Caprica because of some stupid idea that she could save Faith from herself or something. And now she was gone, and there wasn't a single frakking person alive who thought she wasn't a total waste of space.

But one look at Apollo's face and she knew that her grief couldn't touch whatever shit he was going through. Apollo looked like hell, just … frakking broken. Gods, the idiot looked like he'd actually been in love with her.

Well, there was nothing she could say that was going to make things better for him. He was just going to have to get over it. Kara was dead and nothing was gonna change that. There were no words that were gonna magically make this better, but Faith could think of a few things she could do to keep his mind off things—for a little while.

She bent down, straddling him as he slumped on the couch. She caught her head between his hands and tugged his face up towards her. His eyes went wide just as her mouth came crashing down on his.

\---

It took Lee about thirty seconds longer than it should for his brain to catch up. Faith's hands were already pulling at the buttons on his uniform and her hips were grinding purposefully into his, but he managed to grab a hold of her shoulders and push her back. "What are you doing?"

She looked down at him, lips curving into a frown as she shrugged. "Just trying to make you feel better."

Lee blinked hard as Faith moved in again. This time he was able to hold her off. "No Faith, just stop."

"What?" she snapped, sitting back a bit. "I bet you haven't gotten laid since K. I just figured I'd do you a favor."

_Of course_, he thought. Of course Faith would consider doing something like this helpful. He sat up and he could feel that old headache he used to get whenever she was around starting to build. "Look, I love Kara and she is _gone_. I have to live the rest of my frakking life knowing that if I hadn't been so frakking blind to what was really going on with her maybe I could have _saved her_." The words tore out of him with a choked off sob of relief at finally being able to say them to someone. "And you think _this_ is gonna make me feel better?"

Faith's expression darkened as she shoved herself to her feet. "You know what? Frak this," she said, turning and glancing around the room, bewildered.

"Are you frakking kidding me? You came here to get laid and since you can't get what you want you're just going to disappear again?"

"That's the plan."

"Frak," he hissed as he got to his feet. "You haven't changed at all."

She shoved him aside searching in the couch cushions now, not looking at him at all. "You don't know what the hell you're talking about."

"So why don't you enlighten me?" He swayed a little bit, the booze making his actions a little too hard to control, but he placed himself in front of the desk. "What are you doing here? It's been months and there was a blanket pardon issued, Faith! For everything that happened down there on New Caprica. But no, you stayed hidden away… why?"

Faith was studying the floor. "'Cause I'm dangerous. Okay?"

"You're not 'dangerous', Faith," he sneered, shaking his head. "You're pathetic."

That got her attention. She spun towards him, jaw slightly slack. She did have a slightly dangerous glint in her eye and he knew he probably should have stopped there. He didn't. "What do you think Kara would say if she saw you like this—"

Faith stepped in, glowering, growling, "Don't you dare—"

"She believed in you! On top of whatever else happened to her on that frakking mudball, she _blamed herself_ for leaving you behind and it was driving her nuts." He poked an angry finger at her, steady now as the dizziness was replaced by full-blown anger, a fire burning in his gut. Faith stood motionless as he continued. "Maybe if you hadn't run off, made her think it was her fault you were gone, maybe she'd still be _alive_."

Faith recoiled from the words, as though they had been a physical blow. Teeth gritted, she stared up at him, eyes wide and shaking her head. "What the hell do you want from me, Apollo?"

He took a breath, trying to get control of himself. He kept his voice low and even when he spoke again. "I don't want anything from you. But Kara wouldn't have wanted you to just go running off." Lee turned, grabbing Faith's hat off the desk and throwing it back to her. Maybe now that she was actually listening to him, she could do some good. He looked at her with cool appraisal, challenge in his gaze. "We've lost some of our best pilots."

She arched an eyebrow at him, twisting her hat between her hands. "You want me to re-up?" She paused, but he didn't respond. "Anyone knows I'm here, I'm gonna get court-martialed for desertion."

Lee simply turned and walked towards the hatch. He pulled it open and stood aside, looking back at her. "You think you've changed? Prove it."

\---

Faith spent a month in the brig. She'd thought she'd be facing a year in confinement and a dishonorable discharge, but the Admiral only charged her with desertion for a period of less than three days. Later, she found out that Apollo had pointed out that she'd only been gone for thirty-six hours at the time the cylons arrived at New Caprica, prolonging her absence from the fleet. There were other, bigger, court cases at the time and the Fleet needed its pilots. Adama decided to overlook the months after New Caprica and Faith got off easy.

Her first stop after she'd been released was the memorial wall. As Faith took her dogtags off their place between the photographs of Kat and Kara, she made a promise. She wasn't sure if it was to them, or to herself, but it didn't much matter. Faith was sticking around. She'd do better this time, try to be a model soldier even if it killed her. There was some irony in that, but she didn't dwell on it. She needed to report for duty.

The fleet hadn't exactly welcomed her back with open arms, but they did take her back. The racks were possibly even more uncomfortable than she remembered, but having a real shower again wasn't exactly something she was turning her nose up at. She was about as welcome at the triad table as she had been when she first transferred, so not much new there. Helo, who'd been one of her regular visitors in hack, had taken up sparring with her again and there were some times when she was sure that was the only thing keeping her sane. Faith noticed more missing faces than she wanted to admit, but there were old, familiar ones now from _Pegasus_, too.

Things were different now and they just kept on changing. The week she got out of the brig, Apollo'd stepped down from the service and Helo'd stepped up as CAG. Gaius Baltar, who'd managed to dodge her bullets, also dodged a death sentence from the court—thanks to Apollo actually. She'd heard some of his big speech. He hadn't mentioned Kara by name, but Faith heard it anyway when he talked about them all being guilty, one way or another.

Of course, the biggest change came right after that. After the trial and the jump to the Ionian nebula and the weird ass power outage that followed, dradis picked up a cylon fleet. Faith didn't get out into the fight until the second wave of vipers launched, but the fight wasn't the strange part. The strange part was the viper that shouldn't have been out there. For a minute, Faith was sure she'd been seeing things.

Back on the hangar deck, everyone crowded around the viper—Starbuck's viper—watching a dead woman grinning as she climbed out of the cockpit. Faith didn't know _how_ she knew it, but she did. It was K, it _was_. Turns out she wasn't the only one who knew it. Faith felt someone shove past her and watched as Lee ran forward, arms wrapping around Kara and crushing her to his chest.

Faith folded her arms across her stomach, feeling a like a voyeur and not in the good way.

And then the marines showed up.

\---

The scriptures called a return from beyond the grave a miracle, but coming back from the dead hadn't exactly endeared Kara to a lot of people.

She sat alone in an unused meeting room, trying to piece together what bits of information she could to plan a beginning route for when she took over the Demetrius. It was actually a welcome change from the constant suspicion and accusations, the rooms falling silent whenever she walked through a doorway.

Could be worse, she thought. Even though she'd been adamant to all who asked that she'd been gone for six hours and had no way to account for the time difference, it was only half the truth. It really had only felt like a few hours, but what had actually happened to her—well, it sounded like textbook insanity, and she just couldn't frak this up, not now.

Kara shoved herself to her feet, fingers rubbing at her temples as she paced the room. Those things had said they would help her, but clearly they had a strange definition of _help_. She tried to remember the information, the clues they'd given her, but it all felt hazy now.

She remembered what happened before perfectly, remembered her downward spiral that ended in a bad dream—a dream about the man who wore Leoben's face, the thing that had held her captive for weeks on end, who told her she was special, that she had a destiny. She remembered that dream so vividly because it had given her a way out of the trainwreck everything had become.

She remembered the flash of heat as her viper exploded around her.

*~*~*  
_  
"Your death has been a mistake."_

_"A cosmic error, if you would." _

_These two… things—gold and blue, dressed in a manner that the Lords of Kobol have often been depicted—have been trying to explain to her that a couple of higher powers looking the wrong way at the wrong time had led to a SNAFU in the ongoing battle between good and evil. _

_"Think you can run that by me again?" she snaps._

_"You are a champion, Kara Thrace, a physical agent for the Powers that Be."_

_Great. More talk of destiny. Exactly what she needs right now. _

_"Which unfortunately makes you a likely target for the forces of evil—those who would send the universe into chaos and darkness. You were visited by one such force."_

_"The force, perhaps, is more accurate. The oldest evil known to exist. The First."_

_"The First? Couldn't come up with a better name?"_

_"The First is incorporeal and cannot physically alter the world. It can only act through manipulation, convincing others to do its work for it, taking the form of those who have passed away—at least once."_

_"And its grand evil scheme was getting me to kill myself?" she asks, eyebrow raised. "I think that it was in serious need of a new hobby." _

_"You hold the key to finding Earth, Kara Thrace. Removing you from the physical realm will prevent the human race from reaching its new home. Without you, the scales tip in the favor of chaos."_

_In one instant, everything becomes clear. Exactly what she needs to do. Frakking destiny crap. "Put me back."_

_The pair regard her warily; the man shakes his head. "What's done is done."_

_She fights back the urge to hit them. Hitting a god, or god-like being, or whatever the hell they are, isn't going to do her much good right now. Cursing works though. "_Frak that! _You said yourselves that this shouldn't have happened, I shouldn't be dead. So fix it! Send me back! You're so frakking concerned with the battle of good and evil then let me go back and fix it."_

_They look at each other, conferring in silence. The woman turns back to her. "Very well. On one condition…" _

*~*~*

The sound of the hatch creaking open jerked Kara out of her thoughts. Arms folded over her chest, Faith sauntered into the room, regarding her with a smile she might even call warm. She'd known Faith was alive, had gotten the whole story from Lee when he came to visit her in the brig. Still, she hadn't seen her yet, hadn't seen her since New Caprica. Watching her step through that hatch, a tumble of emotions welled up inside of her—relief and rage being the two top contenders at the moment. But she couldn't settle on one to say anything.

It was Faith who finally broke the silence. "So, I heard you tried to kill the president." She stepped towards Kara.

"Yeah," Kara said, her arms crossing her chest in a similar pose. "Not my smartest move."

"Join the club." Faith shrugged, letting out a bittersweet laugh, her arms falling to her sides. "But hey, look at you now. Got your own ship and everything."

"It's a sewage treatment ship. I think it's more of a punishment than anything else." Kara grinned at the way Faith's nose wrinkled, her lips twisting, and her cheeks looking a bit green.

"Nah. I figure if they really wanted to punish you they'd've sent me too. Two birds. One stone." Faith dug her hands into her pockets. "Demotion to ensign, restriction of limits, oh," her face lit up with a laugh, "and my new best friends are the dirty dishes in the mess. Could be worse though, if it wasn't for your boytoy, I'd be stuck in the brig for another year."

"Shame," Kara said, fighting a grin. "I could've used the company."

The corner of Faith's lips quirked upwards in the obnoxious smirk Kara'd seen her wear so many times. "Did you just say you _wanted_ my company, K? 'Cause I seem to remember a couple months in a cave where you acted like havin' me around was some divine punishment the gods had cooked up for you."

Kara looked at the woman standing across from her and tried to see the Lieutenant Lehane who'd barged into her life with booze theft and fistfights, the Slayer with her we-got-no-future-so-frak-it-all mindset, that had perpetually driven her up one bulkhead and down the other. She wasn't there anymore. What Kara saw was a woman who'd taken childhood refuge in imaginary friends, who masked her scars with tattoos, who drank and fought and frakked her pain away, who flew like she had a deathwish because she did, who'd tried to make herself disappear. And yet, somehow, despite everything, she was still standing.

Kara just smiled. "Yeah, well… you kept things interesting." Silence reigned for a moment, before Kara remembered that she actually had work to get done. "Look, I'm actually kinda busy right now. So… uh…"

Faith waved it off. "Yeah. Later."

Faith headed for the hatch and Kara headed back to her seat. She seat down, clicking her pen open and waiting for the sound of the hatch opening and shutting. She never heard it. She looked back to see Faith walking towards her again.

Faith walked up to the table, looking down at the papers. "So… you're off to find Earth?"

"That's the plan."

Faith was silent as her gaze flicked over the charts and maps. "I tried to volunteer for the mission, you know, but apparently I'm too much of a liability."

Kara arched an eyebrow. "I thought you didn't believe in Earth."

Faith tilted her head to look at Kara, her hands braced on the table in front of her. "Well, you never gave up on me. Figured the least I could do is return the favor."

Kara looked at her, for once rendered completely speechless. She opened her mouth, ready to reel out some snappy _Who are you and what did you do with Faith Lehane? _ comeback. But she didn't. Instead, she just said, "Thank you."

A look passed between them, then Faith let out a soft laugh. "Don't go getting all sentimental on me, here, K. Just telling you the truth." She stood straight. "Okay, I'll let you get to it."

Kara watched Faith as she turned and headed for the hatch. The metal screeched as she spun the wheel and the hinges whined open. Before the girl left, she turned back to look at her. "Kara."

"Yeah?"

"You find Earth, and we are gonna celebrate." She winked and disappeared out into the hall, words echoing over her shoulder. "I'm pretty sure you owe me a drink."

\---END---


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The day was grey, a completely ordinary day on New Caprica. No reason to suspect that today was gonna be humanity's last day on this rock—one way or the other.

Faith cast a glance down at her watch. Five minutes to go. Five minutes ’til hell broke loose. It couldn’t happen soon enough, she was starting to get sick of all this waiting. For the tenth time in the last hour, she slid her pistol from where it was hidden against the small of her back, clicked the safety off and on, and slid it back into its place.

The day was grey, a completely ordinary day on New Caprica. No reason to suspect that today was gonna be humanity’s last day on this rock—one way or the other.

Faith ran through the plan in her head one more time. _Galactica_ was waiting to jump into orbit. She wasn’t sure how they were planning to get around the fact that there were five basestars circling the planet at all times. It wasn’t her department anyway. All she had to focus on was the ground. In five minutes, several strategically placed bombs were gonna go off—minimal human casualties expected; just enough to keep the cylons busy so they could pull off the evacuation plan.

Sam had gone on for a while that morning about the importance of timing but she’d tuned it all out. There was only one thing Faith had to focus on now, and that was getting aboard _Colonial One_. Once the bombs started going off, security around the President’s ship should drop, while forces went out to deal with the rebels. If she was fast, and if she was smart, she should be able to get aboard and get the kill.

There were a few holes in the plan. For one, she didn’t exactly have an escape route.

The fact wasn’t exactly bothering her.

Faith checked her watch again. Four minutes. She reached for her pistol, checked her bullets, and put it away again.

\---

Kara had prayed for his soul, once. It’d seemed like a good idea at the time.

Now, living with him daily, she knew that Leoben sweated and bled and prayed. And he came back, again and again and again.

She’d never really thought she’d see him again after Roslin airlocked him. But her blood had run cold when he met her at the door of this prison cell pretending to be an apartment. Kara had known it was him, the same one she’d pulled out her idols for, immediately. She snapped his neck before he’d even spoken a word, the first minute she could after he removed the handcuffs.

The second time she’d gotten close enough, she got him in the gut with a dinner knife and watched him bleed out on the floor. Mealtimes were a bitch after she wasn’t allowed to have silverware anymore.

He never raised a hand against her. Sometimes she’d wished he would, even though she remembers the way he slammed her into a wall. Kara knew he could kill her if he so chose but he didn’t seem to want that. Still, she wished he would give her something to hit, get close enough so she could make him bleed again. It was the only satisfaction she could get in this frakking dollhouse. (Well, that wasn’t exactly true—the sounds of bombs, sirens in the distance, her chaos still living on brought a measure of satisfaction, as well.)

He also never raised his voice—sometimes he talked to her as though talking to a child that didn’t understand. Next time she got the chance to kill him, it would be for that. Most of the time, he just talked _at_ her like he didn’t have any frakking idea how to shut the frak up.

After two months, for the sheer hell of it, she asked him why. He started up again about how “God” wanted her here and how “God” wanted them to be together.

“But why _here?_” Kara waved her arm at the obnoxiously domestic settings.

“You’re safer here,” he said, with that insufferable little grin. “Besides, I like your company.”

She walked away from him, sat at the top of the stairs, her knees tucked to her chest. He came to her; he always did. She gave him a hard shove back and sent him hurtling down the steps. The cylon body hit the ground with a dull thud. Blood pooled bright red against the dull grey carpet. She knelt beside the body, pressing two fingers against his neck. No pulse. Good.

Kara left the body—it’d be gone; somehow, something always got rid of the body when she wasn’t paying attention—and locked herself in the bathroom. Her heart pounded in her chest, her skin crawled, and she suddenly felt the need for a cold shower. She shed her clothes and stepped under the icy spray.

She wondered briefly how much time she had—hours, maybe a day tops until he came back—before shaking the thought from her head. She didn’t want to think about the return, just wanted to focus on her minor victory and the ice water on her skin.

When she turned off the faucet, Kara could hear a distant blast followed by a low siren wailing in the distance. A small smile spread across her lips as she got back into her clothes. Another explosion, closer—the resistance was really on top of things today. She wished she could be there to congratulate them later. She walked out into the living room just in time for a third blast, so close this time she could feel the ground, the walls, rumble with the shock of the explosion.

Something was up.

\---

Voices. _Frak. _

Faith ducked into an empty room, pressing herself up against the bulkhead. She chanced a look around the corner at two skin-jobs caught up arguing—two of the model number fives. They sounded panicked and Faith had to hold in a laugh. Even if the entire plan went to shit, the frakking frenzy they’d driven the cylons into was good enough for her. She wasn’t going to live to see the consequences anyway.

They passed her by without even a second glance. She took a breath, waiting until the coast was clear before venturing out. She rounded the corner, out into the corridor and ran straight into a solid mass she hadn’t seen coming. She gave a hard shove back, knocking the newcomer to the floor, and drawing her pistol, the identity of the passerby sinking in as she took aim.

“Gaeta,” she hissed.

“Slayer?” Gaeta held his hands up in defense as he slowly got to his feet. She noted briefly that he looked like shit. “What the frak are you doing here?”

“Got business with the Prez,” she said, pulling back her weapon.

He lowered his hands. “If you’re here to—”

Faith brought the grip of her gun down hard against his temple and he crumpled to the ground. Frakking collaborator wasn’t worth wasting a bullet on. He was going to get what was coming to him. She turned, leaving the unconscious traitor in the corridor as she took off in a sprint.

As Faith approached the President’s office, she could hear voices coming from inside. She stood along the wall outside and peered through the open hatch—Gaius frakking Baltar, one of the ones like Gina, and a third one, a Three, that Faith had seen a few times around the marketplace.

She raised her gun again, peering around the corner, hoping to get a good shot from the doorway. She zeroed in on Baltar’s head, her finger tense on the trigger, when she saw the one with the platinum hair look her way. Faith squeezed the trigger before the Six could shout a warning. The cylon stepped forward, shoving Baltar out of the way, taking the bullet square in the shoulder.

Since her cover was officially blown, Faith strode into the room, still firing. The feel of her finger on the trigger was the only thing that registered. Everything else, the screaming and shouting were all a hazy din. When the other cylon lunged for her, Faith managed to get her in the arm, before firing off four more shots at Baltar. Two bullets struck his desk, another the bulkhead behind him, and a fourth hit the hideous portrait of himself he’d hung there.

Faith reached for her extra ammo clip, reloaded, and raised to start shooting again. Baltar sprinted for the other end of the room, ducking for cover behind a couch. She hit him once, the bullet grazing his side, her other four hit the leather, and the last one struck the ceiling as the injured Six lunged at her, taking her out at the legs.

Faith’s head banged the metal floor with a sharp smack, her vision blurring white for a moment as pain bloomed in the back of her skull. Suddenly the room that had seemed devoid of anything but her and her target was filled with noise.

She could hear Baltar screaming like a little child behind the couch. “Oh for God’s sake, it’s just a bullet,” the Three said, walking over to where the Six still had Faith pinned to the ground. “Figures the insurgents would send someone to kill the President.”

“What should we do with her?” the Six asked.

“Take her to the baseship,” Three snapped. “We’ve lost control of the situation on the ground and we’re evacuating.”

“Frak that,” Faith shouted, writhing to get out of the cylon’s grip. “Why don’t you motherfrakkers just kill me now?”

The Three looked her over once and then turned towards the Six. “She’s part of the fleet—” It gestured towards Faith’s tanks. “—she might be useful to us later on.”

Two strong arms hauled Faith to her feet. Her head swam and her vision faltered again but a surge of strength coursed through her. _Useful_ meant they were going to keep her around, keep her surviving at the very least. “Like hell!” she hissed, trying to yank herself free. “Get your hands off of me, bastards!” Her voice was shrill, desperate, but she couldn’t get the leverage to free herself.

Faith let out a strangled cry as the two skin-jobs holding her pulled her out into the corridor. “_No!_” She chanted it again and again, each time the word growing weaker until she realized that maybe this was what was coming to her all along. She was a murderer, worthless piece of shit. She wasn’t sure she believed in the gods, not the way Kara did, but she thought that if they were out there looking down at her now, they probably had frakking smug grins on their faces.

Faith shut her eyes to the sound of gunshots.

\---

Kara took the stairs two at a time and raced out into the hall. Her hands closed around the bars, listening to the gunfire and shouting voices in the distance. Another explosion went off, the building shuddering as plaster dust from the ceiling showered down.

From the dark shadows at the end of the hall she could hear someone calling her name. “Kara?”

She recognized the voice. “Sam?” she called back into the darkness. She could make out a shadow stepping forward into the light. She felt a huge bubble of relief welling up at the sight of a familiar face. “What the hell took you so long?”

“Get back.” Sam raised his rifle to aim at the lock on the bars. She stood back against the wall as he fired off a burst of shots. The metal of the lock gave way and clattered to the ground. “We thought you were dead, Kara,” he said as she pulled the bars back. “Ever since they got Tigh and let him go… everyone just assumed the worst.” Sam drew a pistol from his pocket and tossed it to her. “Everyone except Faith.”

“Faith?” She raised an eyebrow. “Not exactly what I expected,” she said, turning the gun over in her hands. Gods, what she wouldn’t have done for one of these the past few months. She looked back up at Sam. “Where is she?”

He faltered. “I’m sure we’ll see her back on _Galactica_.” Kara’s eyes narrowed, studying his face. He turned on his heel and started back down the hallway. “Come on, we gotta go. The Raptor is waiting.”

She caught up to him as they made their way out into the open air. “What aren’t you telling me, Sammy?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he responded a little too late.

“You’re a shit liar,” she said, catching him by the arm and bringing him to a stop. “What are you hiding?”

He let out an exasperated sigh. “Okay, I don’t know anything for sure, but I saw her talking to Tigh earlier and at the beginning of the evacuation I saw her head off towards _Colonial One_.” The tone of voice said he was still skirting the issues.

“What was she talking to Tigh about?”

“Look, Kara, I don’t know!” he snapped. “I had my own work to do… but I know that Tigh has a huge vendetta against Baltar. Even sent Duck on a suicide run just for a chance to get him.”

Kara’s eyes went wide as she felt her heart drop into her stomach. “She’s going after him. That frakking idiot,” she hissed. She turned to head off towards the President’s ship when Sam caught her by the arm.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“Where do you think?” She pulled her arm free, ready to take off again.

“You can’t. Kara, that was an hour ago, either she did it and she’s gone or…” he trailed off, shaking his head.

Kara drew the gun he’d given her and pressed it against his chin. “Faith didn’t give up on me, no frakking way I’m going to give up on her. Now, you wanna try to stop me?” Luckily, he was smart enough not to reply. She lowered the gun and started running off towards _Colonial One._

_Frak_. Leave it to Faith to go off and do something bone-headed like an assassination attempt on a ship filled with cylons. She had a couple choice words she’d save for Tigh next time she saw him too—manipulative bastard using her like that.

The streets were practically empty now, except for bodies. She could hear the roar of engines, ships long grounded taking flight and shooting into the sky. Her feet just kept pounding the dirt road, her pace unrelenting as she focused solely on her target. Her focus was so single-minded that she had no idea Sam was gaining on her until he caught her about the waist. She dropped the gun as he pulled her over his shoulder.

“_Let me down, frakker_!” she screamed beating her hands against his back, her legs kicking in the air.

“Dammit, Kara,” he cried, narrowly avoiding a knee to the face. “The Raptor’s leaving! We have to go _now_!”

He managed to keep his hold on her, despite her kicking and screaming, until they got onto the Raptor and the hatch sealed shut behind them. The engines kicked in and Kara stared out the windscreen, watching New Caprica disappear beneath them—_frakking hell_, there was no going back now. As the fact sunk in, she dropped to the floor, sitting back against the ECO console, dragging her knees to her chest.

\---

Lee shoved his way through the crowded deck. There were so many people, most of them civilian refugees, but a few were familiar faces. He saw Tigh (most of him anyway), Chief, many _Galactica_ and _Pegasus_ pilots who had mustered out when they’d gotten the chance, but he still couldn’t find the one person he was looking for.

His heart started to sink. What if she hadn’t made it? What if she’d died down there? He knew she would have been working to lead the resistance, which made her a prime target for the cylons. What if they’d killed her down there? It wasn’t as though he hadn’t worried about it over the last four months. Hell, there were nights he couldn’t sleep, too plagued by the thoughts that he might never see Kara again—thoughts that quickly seemed like they were becoming reality.

The last Raptor was being brought in to the hangar bay and Lee pushed his way through the throng of people. The hatch opened and he held a long breath as the occupants filed out. Then suddenly he saw a flash of familiar blonde hair and Kara came into view. A wave of elation crashed through him as she stepped down to the deck and he was tempted to thank the gods he didn’t believe in for bringing her back alive.

Lee rushed forward, elbowing roughly through the crowd and her eyes caught his, just as he threw his arms around her and pulled her against his chest. He felt her let out a shuddering breath against his neck and sag into him, her hands coming up, balling his uniform in her fists. Lee felt a fleeting rush of fear that he was going to wake up in his quarters on Pegasus any moment. She tilted her head up to him and he just drank in the sight of her for a moment before sealing his mouth hard over hers.

Lee only pulled back from the kiss when he finally realized that oxygen was becoming an issue. He pulled back for air, panting as he dropped his forehead to rest against hers. “You’re back.” He let out a breathless laugh and wrapped his arms around her waist. “You’re alive. Lords, I was worried that I was never going to see you again. Planning and training for the rescue was talking so long, I thought that we were going to be too late. I thought—”

She pressed her lips to his once more, cutting him off mid-babble. When she pulled back this time, he brought up his hands to smooth her hair away from her face. She looked back up at him; there was something dark and tired in his eyes. “I started to think you weren’t coming back.”

Lee pulled her tighter into his embrace and buried his cheek against her hair, shaking his head. “Never,” he whispered, brushing a light kiss to her temple. “Gods, I missed you.”

“I missed you too,” she breathed.

For a moment she sank into him and he gladly took her weight, holding her up. Lee just basked in the feeling of having her in his arms again, holding her body tight against his. For the first time in four months, he could feel himself relax finally, believing that things were going to be okay. But the next moment Kara stiffened in his arms and pushed back, freeing herself from his grip. He felt his brow furrow as he looked into her eyes—wide and frantic. “Have you seen Faith?”

He shook his head slowly. “No… I haven’t.”

“Frak,” Kara hissed to herself, turning away and disappearing into the crowd. Lee pushed his way after her, watching as she strode straight for Tigh, her voice rising above the celebratory din. “Bastard! You sent her off to _die_ for your frakking vendetta!”

Lee caught her by the arm and pulled her back to him. “Kara, what is going on?”

“He sent Faith off on a suicide mission to assassinate Baltar,” she spat. “I tried to go back for her but… _godsdamnit_!” Her hands were clenched so tight at her sides that her knuckles were turning white.

Kara’d gone down to New Caprica, had gotten stuck there, all for Faith’s sake. He couldn’t blame her for her concern. Lee settled his hands on her shoulders. “Hey, just because she’s not on _Galactica_, doesn’t mean she didn’t get off on another ship. There are a lot of missing people, right now, but we’ll find her. Okay?”

She fixed her gaze on the floor, hands still trembling. She looked like she wanted to keep looking, keep fighting, but she swayed slightly where she stood.. “Come on,” he said softly but firmly. “Let’s get out of here.”

Sleeping arrangements were going to be a mess for a while, but he was still a commander and he knew that this particular senior officers’ quarters was unused—or had been unused at the time he’d left _Galactica_. His father could kick them out later if he wanted to, but Kara looked so relieved to be away from the crowd that it was the only thing he cared about. She’d been quiet ever since they left the hangar deck; he just assumed it was the stress.

The way she practically collapsed onto the rack, he found himself wondering if she’d got a single decent night sleep in the last four months. He stretched out alongside her, brushing a hand over her shoulder. She jumped, flinching away from his touch for a moment as her eyes shot open.

“Are you okay?” he asked, drawing his hand back.

She sighed and shook her head, settling back into the thin mattress. “Forget about it.”

Kara was asleep in a matter of minutes, but even now the troubled look she’d worn ever since she’d pulled back from him on the deck hadn’t quite faded away. Frowning, Lee eased himself out of the bed , draped a blanket over her, and quickly slipped from the room.

He grabbed the first phone he could and placed a call to _Colonial One_. If Faith had gone off to kill Baltar, it was the most likely ship for her to be aboard. When he got Roslin on the phone, she reported that it looked like there had been a struggle in the office, blood stains even, but no sign of Lieutenant Lehane.

\---

Kat sat in the memorial hallway, staring down at the pair of dogtags in her hand, reading the inscription over and over. _F. Lehane_. Their last exchange kept running through her head on repeat.

_You gotta feel something._

_Not a damn thing._

_They sure picked a hell of a callsign for you. _

Her own voice, her own words felt like a steel-toed boot the gut. She was hurt, she was mourning, she’d lashed out—didn’t even bother to think that maybe shutting down was Faith’s way of dealing with whatever the frak was going on in her head. It didn’t matter now though; she was gone and Kat wasn’t going to get another chance to set things right.

Frak, she didn’t even have a photograph to stick up on the wall. This piece of metal was the last thing left of Slayer in the entire fleet and Kat wasn’t sure she was going to be able to bring herself to leave it here.

A pair of footsteps startled Kat out of her train of thought. She looked up to see Starbuck striding into the hallway, her arms folded across her chest as she cast a glance around the photo-covered walls before turning to Kat.

“Still nothing?” Kat asked as Starbuck took a seat beside her.

Her voice was hollow when she answered. “Last of the census results came in today.”

Kat’s breath shuddered as she let out a sigh.

“Gods,” Kara hissed, shaking her head. “She was such a frakking idiot.” Kat watched Kara’s fingers pulling at a tear in her sweatshirt. “Pain in my ass to the last, too; couldn’t even make sure we knew she was dead for two weeks.”

“You expected something clean and easy?” Kat raised an eyebrow at her. “I mean its Slayer we’re talking about. She couldn’t do something nice and neat if she tried to.”

“Did you see the way she flew?” Kara shook her head, a sad-sounding laugh tearing from her throat. “Playing chicken with the raiders. I’m surprised she didn’t get herself killed a long time ago.”

“She was too good for that,” Kat said, the admiration and a strange sense of vicarious pride she’d always felt watching Faith fly welling up inside her once again. “Better than you.”

Kara scoffed. “She wished. All she wanted was to one up _someone_, get in her kicks before she kicked the big one.”

“Yeah,” Kat nodded, a fond sigh escaping. Faith had always lived large, loud, it was hard to think that all of that was gone now. “But you gotta admit, having her around wasn’t _bad_.”

“I guess once you got past the stolen booze and the insubordination and the Pegasus Psycho parts of her, then yeah, not too bad.” Kara made a noise that started like a laugh and ended like a sob, before it faded away. The two of them sat in silence then, staring at the photographs that lined the walls.

Kat pushed herself to her feet, unhooking the clasp and slid one dogtag off the chain and into her pocket. She closed the chain once more and found a small protrusion in the wall to hang it from. She stood back, watching the light from a candle glinting off the metal surface. Kat let out a deep sigh. “So, that’s it then.”

“Yeah,” Kara said, her voice more open and sad than Kat had ever heard it. “Guess so.”

\--To Be Continued--


End file.
